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CH2OICE PROJECT Do the right choice

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Certification for HydrO: Improving Clean Energy

The CH2OICE project Hydropower is the backbone of renewable electricity production in many countries in the European Union: throughout the continent more than two thirds of renewable energy produced is hydropower. Even being renewable, hydropower is often opposed by public bodies and NGOs, worried about the risk of adverse effects on the “good status” of water bodies, that, according to the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC, WFD), has to be reached by the year 2016. Many opportunities of more sustainable hydropower generation are lost, due to the lack of assessment criteria to identify them.

Photo by CIRF

Photos by HSE

CH2OICE Project – started in September 2008 and expected to finish in February 2011 – aims at developing a technically and economically feasible certification procedure for hydropower generation facilities of high environmental standard, being explicitly coherent with the requirements of the Water Framework Directive, to be implemented in “green labelled” electricity products and being integrated, as much as possible, with existing EU tools, such as Ecolabel, EMAS, EIA and SEA. This includes developing a general, agreed and widely transferable approach for such a certification, discussed by all relevant stakeholders, and developing an operational methodology which will be tested for 2 partner countries - Italy and Slovenia.

The certification methodology will primarily refer to existing plants. However, to allow a wider use of the results of the project, the issue of new hydropower

plants authorization will be considered. Following the same logical approach used for the certification of existing plants, a set of guidelines will be produced, to be used by decision makers during planning and authorization procedures and by plants proposers in their EIA and SEA studies.

Specific objective for the partner country France is to evaluate the possibility of upgrading the existing “green” energy label integrating an explicit reference to the WFD. Specific objective for Spain and Slovakia is to build interest on the approach among key actors and to identify main problems and feasibility issues to be tackled, in order to pave the way for near future implementation as in Italy and Slovenia.

The expected results of the project are: ▪▪ reports on main technical tools and regulatory frameworks related to hydropower certification; ▪▪ general methodological approach for WFDcoherent certification agreed by project partners; ▪▪ guidelines for Decision Makers and hydro power generation companies for siting, construction and management of new hydropower plants of higher environmental standard; ▪▪ analysis document for Spain including a roadmap for the development of volunteer certification of hydro power generation facilities of high environmental standard in Spain; ▪▪ proposals and feasibility analysis on the integration of the label scheme in existing procedures, with focus on Italy and France; ▪▪ proposals for rules and criteria for an independent body issuing the hydro power label.

Giulio Conte, Ambiente Italia

Summary The CH2OICE project. Ambiente Italia

p. 1

WFD and hydro-energy production. Securing water for people and nature. WWF Italia Onlus

p. 2

Small hydropower in the European Union today and tomorrow. ESHA, APER

p. 3

Sustainable hydro and certification schemes. Ambiente Italia

p. 5

Best practices and guidelines for compensation measures for hydropower generation facilities. IPVO, IzVRS

p. 7

Developing a methodology to certify hydropower generation of higher environmental standard. CIRF

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p. 8 p. 10

CH2OICE past and next steps.

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Certification for HydrO: Improving Clean Energy

WFD and hydro-energy production.

Securing water for people and nature The EU Directive 2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2000 (the so called Water Framework Directive, WFD) sets out the framework for a water-related community action and represents a reliable and binding reference point for the management of inland surface waters, transitional waters, coastal waters and groundwater.

The ultimate objective is to achieve within 2015 the good ecological (including the biological, physicochemical and hydromorphological) and chemical status (of all natural water bodies and the good ecological potential for the heavy modified water bodies (HMWB) and artificial water bodies (AWB).

The long-term sustainable water management based on a high level of protection of the aquatic environment and of prevention of any further deterioration of their ecological status is at the core the law which has the merit of being the first EU legislation addressing the hydromorphological quality of water bodies.

The perspective is indeed that of multifunctionality, enhancing the Directive the value of the various functions of water, as an asset, and recognising the coexistence of different needs as the conservation of natural resources and the preservation of their ecological functions (environmental aspect and cross-generational fairness), efficient access to resources by people and productive activities (economical aspect), transparency in decision making (social aspect) based on the development of participatory approaches able to influence the final decisions.

Given these premises, will the WFD halt the construction of new dams in the EU? The answer is “no”. However setting high ecological standards for existing dams to reduce the impacts from existing water infrastructures, and strict criteria for building the new ones, protection and restoration of European freshwater habitats, both for people and for nature, has to become part of the new “hydro-energy production culture”. In fact the WFD request is to maintain the ecological functions of hydropower-affected water stretches and therefore to achieve a proper and well-balanced approach

which is fundamental to meet water and nature protection objectives as well as to contribute in a sustainable way to climate change mitigation and adaptation.

This is one of the key Conclusion of the WFD and Hydropower CIS Workshop, held in Berlin in 2007 that also states: “National and European instruments (such as feed-in tariffs and ecolabelling) to support and promote hydropower development should be linked to ecological criteria for the protection of water status”. As matter of facts, nowadays it is common understanding that biological continuity (upstream, downstream and lateral migration), minimum flow and hydro-peaking (with its remarkable effects f.i. on erosion and habitat degradation) are priority considerations to be taken into account for the improvement of the water ecological status. Moreover the discussion held in Berlin has clearly shown that “more holistic approaches for hydropower use are needed. The focus should be on catchment level and not only site-specific or on water body level”.

Therefore, it is time for a “sustainable” approach from the hydro-energy sector which should honestly include in its evaluations the complexity of different objectives and interests of water uses, the different scales where impacts occur, the application of the full cost recovery principle including environmental and resource costs while being open and really transparent in decision taking.

Already ten years ago the World Commission on Dams stated: “Dams have made an important and significant contribution to human development, and the benefits derived from them have been considerable. In too many cases an unacceptable and often unnecessary price has been paid to secure those benefits, especially in social and environmental terms, by people displaced, by communities downstream, by taxpayers and by the natural environment.” The WFD wants to be the reliable answer.

Nicoletta Toniutti, WWF Italia Onlus

“It is time to start a sustainable hydroenergy production era based on more holistic approaches and the inclusion of environmental and resources costs.”

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Small hydropower in the European Union today and tomorrow Today there are over 21 000 small hydropower plants in the European Union. They generate over 41,000 GWh of electricity and account to over 13,000 MW of installed capacity. This would be enough to supply electricity for over 12 million households in Europe.

It represents about 9 % of the total hydropower installed capacity and around 2 % of the total electricity capacity installed in the EU-27 in 2006. All together EU-27-generated hydropower represents around 10% of the EU’s electricity production (in 2006). However, the growth rates of SHP during the past years both in terms of production and capacity are decreasing. This is due to the many barriers that the sector is facing, mainly focussed on (a) administrative procedures for authorisations for permits, water rights and in particular the issue of concessions and (b) environmental requirements mainly coming from the implementation of the Water Framework Directive. At the same time, a new Directive on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources with a binding overall 20 % RES target by 2020 was adopted in December 2008. The new RES directive obliges countries to increase their share of renewable energy production. Still current developments regarding conditions for hydropower in some of the CH2OICE partner countries, ie in Italy and Slovenia, show some discouraging tendencies.

Reconciling the targets of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and the RES Directive remains a challenge for the further development of hydropower in Europe.

Review of SHP potential in EU-27 Hydropower is very dependent on a country’s geography. This is demonstrated by the fact that 85.1% of installed small hydropower capacity is concentrated in six member states of the EU-27.

These leading six countries are Italy on the top, accounting for about 21% of the total SHP installed capacity in the EU-27, followed by France (17.5%), Spain (15.5%), Germany (14%), Austria (9.4%) and Sweden (7.7%). The largest capacities in the new Member States are in Romania (3%), Czech Republic (2.4%) and Poland (2.3%).

SHP installed capacity in MW, 2006 - Eurostat.

EU-27 RES electricity production, 2006 - ESHA.

Small hydropower has still significant untapped potential, not only in the development of new plants, but also in the repowering (increase of efficiency and electricity production as well as environmental performance) of old ones. When considering current and future SHP potential in the EU, it has been estimated that a further amount of 68.4 TWh/y seems to be technically exploitable according to the Green-X EU project 2007. Within this potential upgrading may represent 30TWh (TNSHP, 2005) in Europe.

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Eurostat 2006

“Reconciling the targets of the Water Framework Directive and the RES Directive remains a challenge for the further development of hydropower in Europe.”

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E lec tric ity G eneration 2006 a nd P otential for S HP with Electricity generation 2006 and potentials in the EU-27 (GWh).

E c onomic and E nvironmental C ons traints 30000 25000 20000 15000 GWh 10000 5000 0

AT BE DK FI FR DE EL IE IT LU NL PT ES SE UK BG CY CZ EE HU LV LT MT PL RO SK SI HR MK TR NO CH BA ME

2006

Upgrading

New SHP

Reconciling RES and WFD targets The requirements set by the Water Framework Directive, often add cost and slow down hydropower development. At the same time the new RES directive obliges countries to increase their share of renewable energy production. Thus, it is important to define strategies to reach both WFD and RES Directive targets. Currently the implementation of the Water Framework Directive is moving from theory to practice. The Member States are drafting their final River Basin Management Plans with Programme of Measures to be submitted to the Commission by the end of 2009. The measures taken to meet the final objectives of the WFD, imply strong negative effects on small hydro: ▪▪ reduction of energy production due to increase of reserved flow; ▪▪ reduction of energy production due to sediment management; ▪▪ increase in investment and operation costs due to new fish passages; ▪▪ restriction in the water level management of storage basins; ▪▪ increase in investment and operation costs due river restoration measures.

With the RES Directive, National Action Plans with detailed information on national mix need to be submitted to the Commission by June 2010. With today’s increased and urgent need for clean energy and climate change mitigation together with the requirements of the new RES Directive, there are pressures on governments to improve conditions for

the promotion of renewable energy in a way that potentials in all the sectors will be exploited.

Recent SHP developments in CH2OICE partner countries: Italy and Slovenia The Italian government should have set a few weeks ago the “regional burden sharing” for the new EU Directive for 2020, but decided to postpone the deadline for other 2 months. All the Italian River Basin Authorities are now preparing the RBMPs and will deliver a draft of them for the end of June. This will be a crucial milestone to understand which will be the future of new and existing hydropower in Italy. During the “FORUM for WATER and ENERGY” organized by Piemonte Region last April, it emerged that the regional government is generally against mini-hydro (plants < 1MW), since “they can’t deliver a significant contribution to the energy balance while a big number of them can significantly impact the environment”. This attitude is quite “new and dangerous, since in Italy there aren’t many unexploited sites for medium-big size hydro plants and the main residual potential is for mini-small plants! River Basin Management Plans are also under preparation in Slovenia. Furthermore, the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning has drafted a decree on increasing the amount of residual flow of SHP plants. However, no scientific proof of positive environmental impacts or economic assessment on the consequences of such increase were made.

This increase could mean 40 % or even bigger losses in production, not to mention other economic consequences. Additionally, this would have harmful impact also for the environment as the carbonneutral loss of production would need to be replaced by other means. In the end small hydropower’s main challenge relates to both economy and ecology.

Small hydropower can be largely developed only to the extent that it produces electricity at competitive prices, and under conditions that are respectful of the environment. Finding a balance between the Water Framework Directive and the RES Directive remains a key objective for the sector.

Lauha Fried, ESHA Sara Gollessi, APER

“������������������������������������������������������������������������������ Small hydropower plants can be largely developed only if they produce electri� city at competitive prices and with respect to the environment.”

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Certification for HydrO: Improving Clean Energy

Sustainable hydro and certification schemes What is the “added value” of being certified for producers?

There are three main reasons that could make a certification procedure “attractive” for hydropower producers: ▪▪ direct economic reason: certified energy could be sold at significantly higher price; ▪▪ access to public incentives; ▪▪ possibility to ease and speed up the licensing or re-licensing procedure.

The first reason is the one that allowed the growth of Swiss label “greenhydro-naturemade”. However the Swiss energy market appears to be quite favourable since the price increase for labelled hydropower is around 30% of the average energy price: such situation is not applicable in most European energy markets, where willingness to pay higher price for green energy is around a few percentage points of the normal price.

The second reason would require the label to be recognized by Member State governments: it’s a condition that could occur only after the certification procedure is implemented and well known.

The third reason is, presently, the most interesting: a producer who has to be re-licensed will most likely undergo an analysis of the compatibility of its plant to the environmental requirements and, consequently, envisage a management practice able to guarantee their fulfilment.

What kind of producer could be willing to certify?

Obviously the interest of producers will depend on how tough the requirement to be certified will be.

For existing large hydropower plants the certification will require significant changes in management practice for this reason they will not be particularly interested (unless they’re asked for such changes to be relicensed. More interest could be raised among small-medium size run-of-river plants, but considering that recently built small plants in several countries could benefit of a guaranteed feed-in tariff

those producers could decide to certify only if the selling price they can get on the market is higher than the fixed supported price.

Every country has different eligibility criteria and mechanism of pricing for hydropower to get the feed in tariff: a synthetic scheme is reported in the table.

Eligible plants1 (MW)

Duration of the supporting period (years)

Fixed price (€/MWh)

< 12

20

60-130

France Italy

< 1

15

220

<1;<5

n.a.

82-133

<5

n.a.

65-63

< 10 ; < 50

25

65-90

Slovakia Slovenia Spain

In France and Spain the size of the plants that could access the feed in tariff is quite large, and the public support is guaranteed for a long time, which means that only a significant increase of price can bring producers to leave a protected market and get the risk to certificate their plants and face the free market. However, several existing “green” label exist in France, based on RECS or on other kind of certification: therefore there’s a market interested in buying renewable and the possibility to find a “niche” for “sustainable” hydro.

In Slovenia and Slovakia only plants up to 5 MW have access to feed in tariff, but prices are not that high (specially in Slovenia) and may leave space for producers willing to find better price on the market.

However we have to consider that in Slovenia there’s a public premium for any kind of RE sold: but GO’s has to be transferred to the Support Centre in order to get the Premium (which means that you can’t sell it on the market as renewable).

In Italy only very small plant have access to feed in tariff, but the guaranteed price is so high that there’s no chance that the owner of a small plant will look for the free market. Apparently there’s an interesting fraction of small-medium “on the river” plants that may be interested in getting the certification. Presently the other support system

“What is the “added value” of being certified for producers?”

“What kind of producer could be willing to certify?”

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(based on “green certificates”) does not conflict with the possibility to sell RE on the market, since the producer who sells green certificates maintain the GO that can be used, together with the CH2OICE certification, to guarantee the product.

Among potential hydropower plants interested to, companies who are already undergoing an ISO 14001 or EMAS certification are the ones that could more easily get a CH2OICE certification, because they are already familiar with the environmental analysis and a management plan, aimed at improving their performance.

What label to use on the energy market?

In 2004, the Eugene network was created, including several participants and supporters throughout Europe, mainly environmental NGO and organisation managing existing renewable energy labels. The idea behind the network was to develop an international standard for green energy and a harmonised labelling system: in fact the presence of so many different “green” labels with different eligibility criteria is obviously disorienting for energy consumers. If a network of many trustable organisations could identify a common view, this would have brought to a much clearer situation. However in January 2009, after 5 years of work, the general assembly of Eugene has decided its dismantling.

The reasons for this decision have not been clarified publicly, but it is evident that the harmonization at EU scale of different labels is a very difficult task.

The failure, so far, of the Eugene standard shows how difficult is the harmonization of criteria among different label issuing bodies. Therefore, while developing the CH2OICE certification methodology, it is necessary to analyse carefully how existing labels work, trying to foreshadow how CH2OICE certified energy could be put on the market by each label. In other words: when possible, it seems more reasonable to check directly with existing bodies issuing “green” energy labels if they can integrate the CH2OICE certification in their procedures, putting on the market “CH2OICE” certified energy, rather than creating a new label. Obviously this is not the case of countries – such as Spain and Slovakia – where no “green” electricity labels exists yet.

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Every countries have different restriction for elegibility of plants to the “feed in” supporting system, concerning mainly the years of operation.

Giulio Conte, Ambiente Italia

“What label to use on the energy market?”

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Best practices and guidelines for compensation measures for hydropower generation facilities Nowadays a large amount of scientific and technical papers concerning environmental mitigation and compensation measures for hydropower facilities is available, very often freely accessible on the web. A critical review of existing literature and specifically experiences and best practice is been carried out by CH2OICE (www.ch2oice.eu, Download page).

The first part of the review includes “general guidelines”, i.e.: documents conceived in order to deal in a comprehensive way with all the negative effects of hydropower production on aquatic and related terrestrial ecosystems.

In the second part, the review is focused on specific criteria, defined in order to cover the main categories of management/mitigation measures ensuring continuity for fish fauna, sediment management, environmental flow, hydropeaking and power plant design. For each category, examples of practical implementation of the described measures were presented.

The guidance for restoration of fish migration in European river systems, including principles of fish migration in river systems, implementation of policy, maintenance, monitoring and evaluation of facilities, communication and education is presented.

The most appropriate solutions for fish passes are context-specific and have to be chosen basing on a comprehensive analysis, taking into account several criteria. Most reviewed guidelines are not design and construction manuals. Several of these exist, often available only in national languages and adapted to local context/river typologies/target species.

geomorphological studies/surveys at basin scale.

The alteration of the in-stream flow pattern is one of the most evident effects of hydropower facilities and regulations related to downstream obligatory discharge have been in place in many countries for a long time. There are significant differences between methods for environmental flow assessment: some of them based only on hydrological data and establishing a minimum constant flow and others requiring for some adaptation to natural discharge patterns and explicitly based on quantitative evaluations related to biological parameters. While extensive literature is available on the impact of hydropeaking on the ecosystem, a very limited amount of case studies applying available mitigation solutions, usually involving loss of plant peak load capacity.

In conclusion, the review carried on by CH2OICE could help hydro plant designers to do their best to mitigate their negative effects, however the environmental impact of a hydropower facility is of course related not only to management practices, but also to where the power plant’s infrastructure is built: there could be sensitive areas where no mitigation measure could be enough to guarantee the preservation of river ecosystem.

Ana Vovk Korže, Mojca Kokot, IPVO Nataša Smolar-Žvanut, IzVRS

International experiences and literature on sediment management are available and underline the need to mitigate the effects of sediment trapping in reservoirs, often cumulating with similar effects due to direct gravel mining in river beds and bank stabilisation works reducing natural sediment load from riparian areas. Most pilot experiences focus on ensuring more adequate bedload transport, based on clear identification of deficit through

“CH2OICE could help hydro plant designers to do their best to mitigate environmental impacts.”

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Certification for HydrO: Improving Clean Energy

Developing a methodology to certify hydropower generation of higher environmental standard Within the project two stages are foreseen for the development of the certification procedure: a first, general one, where the main concepts, obligatory steps and contents have to be decided and agreed by all partners, and that should be widely applicable in all partner countries; and two national procedures, for Italy and Slovenia, to be developed at operational level, and tested at real scale. At the moment, the general methodology has been defined, based upon the literature review activity and on the results of dedicated workshops. Although the testing phase may bring new insights into the conceptual structure, the national operational procedures should remain in line with the agreed general methodology. The proposed steps of the procedure for certification are presented below.

1 - Selecting the appropriate procedure: standard or simplified In order to facilitate the certification when no significant impact is caused by the plant, the methodology foresees the possibility to adopt a simplified procedure, not entailing environmental study/management programme drafting. At this stage, only hydropower plants in sewage and aqueduct networks are allowed to follow the simplified procedure (provided that it can be proved that no further water withdrawal compared to domestic demand is carried out with the aim of increasing hydro production).

2 - Assessment of the environmental status of the affected ecosystems and analysis of pressure factors The goal of this step is to define, based mainly on available data, how is the present status of the affected ecosystems and, based on modelling and/ or on expert judgement, what are the main pressure factors determining these conditions, related to the plant to be certified. This preliminary assessment should also include a rough analysis provided and

indication on feasibility/affordability to proceed with the certification procedure. The methodology defines the environmental criteria and the scale of analysis to be adopted. The analysis must provide quantitative data wherever possible on present and future values for the indicators representing all criteria and clarify at least qualitatively the causeeffect relationships.

3 - Drafting of a management programme At this stage a single level certification is foreseen.

The possibility to develop also a lower level certification and/or mixed energy products related to renewable energy sources with higher environmental impact will be explored at a later stage of the project. In order to obtain the highest level label, the defined target consists in the following.

If the affected water body is a natural one: assuming that all the pressure factors not related to the hydropower plant are removed, the effects due to plant presence and management do not prevent the attainment of a high ecological status (sensu WFD for the water body scale) and further targets related to additional criteria (to be defined in the national methodologies). At the water body scale and if the plant is the main pressure factor, the target can be defined quantitatively and verified through monitoring; otherwise and at local and basin scales, the same description most probably cannot be translated in a quantitative target, but the reference remains the above defined. If the affected water body is a small stream with no WFD objectives, the target is the same as above, but flexibility must be allowed about its qualitative/quantitative definition.

HPPs can in principle be certified also in case they are on/they affect an artificial or heavily modified water body (HMWB). This point will have to be developed in national methodologies. Two sub-cases can be highlighted at this stage: a) the HPP is the water use due to which the heavily modification is introduced; b) other water uses are the cause for

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The voluntary commitment of water users towards more sustainable hydropower could be an effective tool to integrate planning activities in the implementation of the WFD and RES-e directive.â&#x20AC;?

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the definition of heavily modification. Regarding the measures to be included related to transparency of operation, the producer who is willing to certify his plant commits himself to complete transparency of information required by the auditing body. He will also be available to give to the public any information required, except confidential information (due to concurrency reasons, to be duly justified).

7 - Monitoring of the actual implementation of the management plan and of resulting ecological improvements Monitoring and periodical reporting to the labelling body must be included in the management plan.

Within this activity the public consultation plays an important role.

4 - Public consultation and involvement The public consultation process takes place along the entire label life span, from the environmental assessment to the evaluation of the implementation of the management programme and of related measures.

8 - Label expiry and possible new certification It is key to introduce explicitly a “progressive” approach: information will enhance with time and maybe an HPP operation scheme that has been labelled today will need amendments to keep the label in the future, which means that monitoring and re-labelling ought to be managed coherently.

The duration of the label has been fixed in 6 years.

5 - Auditing by the national labelling body Documentation related to all the previously describes steps are evaluated. If integrations or changes are needed, the procedure brings back to previous steps; otherwise it proceeds to label issuing.

Andrea Goltara, CIRF

6 - Label issuing It has been agreed by project partners that the label can be issued after the first auditing report and possibly when further conditions are fulfilled; after the testing phase, the general methodology will be reviewed to better define the open issues of this point. With regard to the cost of the label issuing, the general methodology does not envisage a fixed restoration fund while country specification could require obligatory participation to such a fund.

Obligatory participation to a common fund, managed by a public body (directly or through NGOs) could be required also in specific river basins, where restoration is required and participatory processes aimed at river restoration are ongoing (a restoration fund could possibly include also contributions from other water users).

“The general methodology has been defined based upon literature review and expert consultations”

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CH2OICE past and next steps CH2OICE workshop in Brussels (Belgium) on February 12, 2009.

This first CH2OICE workshop took place in Brussels, in the framework of the annual European Union Sustainable Energy Week (www.eusew.eu). Its aim was to present in detail the project and to exchange points of view on the future of hydro energy and on its relationship with the environment with key actors and stakeholders, including policy makers at national and European level.

Brussels - photo by Sara Gollessi - APER.

First CH2OICE meeting in Italy on April 16, 2009.

About 40 representatives of energy companies, NGOs and Local Authorities participated in the meeting. During the event objectives of CH2OICE project and certification methodology principles were presented and comment and observation from the attendees were collected.

Ljubliana - photos by Ana Vovk Korže - IPVO.

Meeting in Venice (Italy), on May 15, 2009.

On may 15th, near Venice, took place the first Italian “expert meeting” to discuss the detailed certification methodology concerning Italian water ecosystem. Sixteen experts have made their first comments on how the general methodology could be further developed to be applied in Italy.

Hydro 2009 - International Conference and Exhibition, on October 26-28, Lyon (France) CH2OICE project will be presented in the framework of Hydro 2009 (www.hydropower-dams.com).

This International Conference and Exhibition will bring together planners, developers, owners and operators, environmental specialists, financiers, researchers, manufacturers and equipment suppliers for an exchange of expertise which will be constructive in furthering well-planned hydropower development worldwide.

First CH2OICE meeting in Slovenia on May 7, 2009.

The programme included presentations about legislation background, EU market of certification and labelling, RECS standards and declaration of origin, CH2OICE project presentation and description of parameters for Hydropower plant certification.

Stakeholders from ministries, agencies, and NGOs participated in the discussion.

“Next CH2OICE event will take place in the framework of Hydro 2009 in Lyon (France) on October 26-28”

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Certification for HydrO: Improving Clean Energy

Partners Ambiente Italia (AI), Italy

www.ambienteitalia.it

Centro Italiano per la Riqualificazione Fluviale (CIRF), Italy World Wide Fund Italia (WWF Italia Onlus), Italy

www.cirf.org

www.wwf.it

Associazione Produttori Energia da Fonti Rinnovabili (APER), Italy STUDIO FROSIO

Studio Frosio (FROSIO), Italy

www.aper.it

www.studiofrosio.it

LIMNOS Company for applied ecology Ltd (LIMNOS), Slovenia Institute za Vode Republike Slovenije (IzVRS), Slovenia Holding Slovenske elektrarne d.o.o. (HSE), Slovenia

www.limnos.si

www.izvrs.si www.hse.si

Institute for the Promotion of Environmental Protection (IPVO), Slovenia www.ipvo.si Slovenian Small Hydropower Association (SSHA), Slovenia

www.zdmhe.si

European Small Hydropower Association (ESHA), Belgium

www.esha.be

Comité de Liaison Énergies Renouvelables (CLER), France

www.cler.org

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), Spain

www.upm.es

Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC), Slovakia www.rec.org With the collaboration of: Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (EAWAG) www.eawag.ch Association for environmentally sound electricity (VUE) www.naturemade.ch

Coordination by:

Alessandro de Carli WWF Italia Onlus Anna Bombonato, Giulio Conte Ambiente Italia

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