CH2OICE PROJECT Do the right choice
n. 3 December 2010
www.ch2oice.eu
Certification for HydrO: Improving Clean Energy
CH 2OICE Project towards its end: really sustainable hydropower could be marketed shortly in Italy and Slovenia “Yes we can” “Yes we can”: this could be the very short synthesis of the results of the 8-months-test of the CH2OICE methodology made on 8 hydropower plants, 4 in Italy and 4 in Slovenia, to assess their environmental compatibility. The teams of CIRF (Italian Centre for River Restoration) and IZVRS (Institute for Water of the Republic of Slovenia), together with several other Italian and Slovenian experts, applied the CH2OICE methodology on very different plants, from the very small ones that run in aqueducts, to large-reservoir ones with several megawatt of power. By the end of 2010 the final report of the testing activity will be available; the detailed methodologies for Slovenia and Italy will be slightly reviewed and made available in a final version. Even though experts are still elaborating the very final results of the tests, we can provide at least some preliminary conclusions: ▪▪ the certification is technically and economically feasible: in the worst case, the costs of the environmental analysis (where very little data is
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available) could reach a few tens of thousands euros, whereas the added management costs due to certification are variable, but may not be relevant for a plant correctly designed to minimize its impact on the river; the size of the plant is not really significant: both large and small plants can be certified, even though reservoir-plants generally produce impacts that are more difficult, and expensive, to mitigate.
Environmentally Certified Hydropower: first ch(2)oice energy for connoisseurs During 2010, CH2OICE partners have been working hard to create the CH2OICE certification body –expected to be operating in March/April 2011, just after the project end– and to raise interest of hydropower producers on the certification. Unfortunately, according to the answer got from the energy companies contacted, up to now only very few producers show a serious interest in going through a certification process and only one existing label (the Italian 100% Energia Verde) is thinking to create a market label to sell CH2OICE certified energy. Apparently, two main factors are keeping the interest of producers for certification low. The first is the economic crisis, whose effects on “willingness to pay” of customers for higher environmental
Slovenian and Italian hydropower plants.
Summary CH2OICE Project towards its end: really sustainable hydropower could be marketed shortly in Italy and Slovenia. Ambiente Italia
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Since December 2010 seven National Workshops for project result dissemination will take place.
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Final Conference on February 25, 2011, in Rome.
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