ESHA Governing Board 10.00 – 15.00
Brussels, 12.06.2007
Participants: Adrian Abbott Bernhard Pelikan Christer Söderberg Christine Lins Gema San Bruno Hubert Zimmer Jean-Pierre Corbet Maria Laguna Nino Frosio Noémie Laumont Petras Punys Sara Gollessi Wendy Lakin
BHA ESHA SERO ESHA R for D HEA-Europe ESHA APER EDORA Lithuanian Hydropower Association APER ESHA
ESHA – European Small Hydropower Association Renewable Energy House, Rue d’Arlon 63-65, B - 1040 Bruxelles, Belgium Tel: +32.2.546.19.45 Fax: +32.2.546.19.47, e-mail: info@esha.be, I: www.esha.be
Bernhard Pelikan welcomed the Board Members. The following points of the agenda were discussed.
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Overview of ongoing activities
a) Change in ESHA staff Christine informed that Maria is leaving ESHA in September 2007, she will start as Project Manager in EREC. Gema San Bruno, former ESHA Project Manager, will take over from Maria as Project Manager on a part-time basis from September 2007. Maria is going to keep working part-time for ESHA until that time to allow a smooth handover of the workload. A Deputy Secretary General will also be hired from September, the job profile and job advert for this person will be communicated to the members. Christine announced that the REH accountant Pascal Collin has left the Renewable Energy House, and the ESHA accounts for 2006 could not be finalised in time before the meeting. The new accountant Jean-Marc Willems is working on the accounts now and they will be finalised by September 2008. The Board agrees to postpone the approval of the Accounts and the General Assembly to the next Governing Board meeting. b) SET-P Consultation Maria explained that the Energy Package presented by the EC on the 10th January included a Strategic Technology Action Plan (SET-Plan). ESHA was asked by the EC to organise a meeting in the REH together with the European Ocean Energy Association to discuss with DG Research the priorities of the Plan. Therefore a Hydro& Ocean hearing took place on the 7th of May 2007 in the REH. Many Industries were also present like Siemens, Vatech, Alstom. ESHA has drafted a paper on the workshop conclusions that was sent to the EC. Maria underlined that this contribution is built on the good results of the work developed by the TNSHP and it is a starting point in the collaboration of ESHA and the HEA-E. c) WFD – Strategy Coordination Group Update Maria explained the work done by the working group on the WFD, which was set up at the beginning of 2006 under the activities of the Strategy Coordination Group (SCG) by the EC. The objective of the group is to identify and share good practice approaches to managing the adverse impacts of water uses on the hydromorphological characteristics of surface water bodies. Bernhard Pelikan and Maria Laguna (ESHA), Gerald Eckert (new ESHA GB member from the German Association), Nino Frosio and Sara Gollesi from APER, Italy participated in the Workshop on WFD and Hydropower that took place in Berlin on 4-5 June 2007 under the German Presidency. Focus of the workshop is on hydropower use and the relationship to hydromorphological changes. The key conclusions were included in the Board documentation, the presentations as well as the list of participants are available on http://www.ecologicevents.de/hydropower/presentations.htm
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d) Administrative Barriers Consultation Maria explained that ESHA has been invited to give feedback to DG TREN on administrative barriers for SHP development. Maria prepared a paper base on the input received from ESHA members and on the first results of the SHERPA project and on the SPLASH project. This paper was presented to DG TREN on the 7th of May in a workshop organized by the IEE Agency. The summary included in the Board documentation summarises the information gathered by ESHA through a survey to its members.
e) Sustainable Hydropower & IHA Sustainability Guidelines Bernhard Pelikan explained that 4-5 years ago the IHA designed an assessment protocol for sustainable hydropower, which was mainly a criteria list to assess sustainability. It was, however, designed solely for Large Hydro. Bernhard suggested that it would be a good idea for the Board members to look over this report and to take the time to apply the criteria of the Sustainability Protocol to an existing or new small hydro project. This, he explained, would then make it clear how much of the protocol was also applicable to Small Hydro. Attached is the presentation delivered by Bernhard at the IHA conference in Turkey end of May on “Sustainability of SHP”. As a result of this work of the Board members, ESHA would be able to produce a statement of its position regarding SHP’s sustainability. Another idea would also be to use this in order to find the differentiation in plant sizes, i.e. continuous scaling using certain steps up to 10MW, 20 MW etc…and help develop a strategy to the problem of size. The aim of this protocol would this be to install a quality control on SHPs and to help with acquiring financial support and making the whole process of refurbishment or creation of a project standard, and therefore a lot quicker than it is today.
f)
Projects
i) SHERPA project update Maria presented the first results of the project introducing the image folders and leaflets published, which have been disseminated already at several large events. They have also know been translated into Italian. Maria also gave a summary of the different Policy fora. The first took place at the Ministry of Finance and Industry in France on 16th January 2007 where both Bernhard Pelikan and ADEME were present during the roundtables (300-400 participants). The next forum was organised in Kaunas, Lithuania on March 24th by Petras Punys. The forum thus presented the goals of the SHERPA project, and the report of the meeting was included in the Board documentation. Petras confirmed that the brochure would soon be available. The event attracted some 80 participants. The next forum will be held in Poland from 24-27 June and is organised by Januzs Steller. It will take place in the framework of a larger event regarding renewables in Poland. The fourth forum will be organised by APER and will take place in Italy. It is planned that it will take place in the framework of the National Conference organised by the Ministry of Environment and most probably in Rome in March 2008. The last forum will be held in Sweden in June or September 2008. PowerPoint presentations are available on ESHA website. Maria asked the Board Members to fill in the questionnaire on Market development of SHP sent by Christer Soderberg and Petras Punys and send it back to her. Maria 3
underlined the need to have up to date figures on small hydropower to support arguments towards the EU institutions.
ii) RESTMAC (RES Technology Marketing Campaign) Maria reminded the Board that RESTMAC project was coordinated by EREC and that ESHA’s role was to carry out different activities including the conference in Crieff, Scotland of June last year, and to develop sustainability brochures by the end of the year. Since, ESHA has organised a SHP workshop on the new member states and Balkan regions during the RENEXPO conference in Budapest in April 2007, which resulted in contacts being made with countries such as Romania and Macedonia. Powerpoints are available on ESHA website. ESHA will start discussions with ADEME to organise a workshop on sustainability issues related to SHP in the framework of the Energaia conference ( under RESTMAC and SHERPA projects) in December 2007 in Montpellier. Christine asked Bernhard Pelikan to have by then already a Brochure on the applicability criteria of the IHA sustainability guidelines to SHP development. iii) SHAPES Even though the negotiations have been finished, Christine explained that ESHA had still not received the contract from the European Commission. However, after checking with the EC, it is ensured that the contract will be issued in a foreseeable future. The signature is postponed because of heavy workload of European Commission staff. It is hoped that the project will be able to begin in Sept/Oct. 2007. iv) TAW (Technology at work) ESHA has a small role in this project, which deals with Asian countries via the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). ESHA’s aim is to strengthen the links with INSHP in China. In this respect, a workshop will be organised by ESHA together with the IEA early next year (preferably March 2008) in Hangzhou (China). Christine asked if the Board would be interested in a study-tour (if co-funded by the project) of one week including the workshop as well as some visits to hydropower installations. The Board was interested as long as the costs were analysed first. v) Pakistan This project only began in April 2007 and will last for 12 months. Differently from the other projects, this one is financed by the Commission’s EuropAid office, and deals with trade missions in Pakistan. ESHA is in the process of drafting it’s SHP training, which will be headed by ESHA President Bernhard Pelikan. The Matchmaking event (information provided in the Board documents) is scheduled for December 2007 in Pakistan and is organised by GTZ. Maria asked Jean Pierre Corbet to check with HEA- E if they are interested in a trade mission in Pakistan. Info of the project can be found in: http://www.eu-pakistanrenewables.com/cms/front_content.php?idcat=79
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g) ESHA Participation in Call for Proposals for FP7 Maria explained that at the previous FP7 call (deadline 3rd May 2007) ESHA took part in 3 consortia. At first, ESHA wanted to coordinate one project on developing a hydropower strategy as continuation of TNSHP & SHAPES, however, as the SHAPES contract was still not signed, it appeared more appropriate to join the one proposed by CESI (Italy), which deals with the overall RTD Strategy of the European Hydropower sector. ESHA also participated in two collaborative projects, one under MhyLab, as coordinator dealing with the financial and administrative aspects of the project, and secondly under NTUA for turbine software development, as partner for the dissemination of project results. This will ensure incoming for ESHA from projects for 3-5 years, pending acceptance of the projects, which will be known sometime in May 2008.
h)
Collaboration i) HEA-Europe industry Jean-Pierre Corbet gave the Board an update of the situation and listed the members of HEAE so far, being VA Tech, Mecamidi, Litostroj, Alstom, Stellba, Voith-Siemens, and Turam. Jean–Pierre explained that in order to further exploit hydropower, political help was urgently needed. A HEA-E meeting will take place at hydro 2007 in Granada. ii) IEA-Annex II Small Hydro ESHA and the IEA-Annex II have prepared a collaboration agreement which is about to be signed. The Annex II members include such countries as Norway, Canada, Japan etc… It is useful, as it is basically internationalising ESHA activities. Bernhard Pelikan added that this also had brought about a link with Brazil, which in turn was sure to bring other contacts with other Latin American countries. As a result, a SHP office could be created, with ESHA as the group focus. i) ESHA Participation in events Maria explained the participation of ESHA events in meetings up to November 2007, and distributed a list of those events to ESHA members. Bernhard explains that he manages to finance most of his international travels via his university, thereby having a free-of-charge benefit for ESHA. He explained that he would be travelling to Moscow and Montenegro in the next few weeks, and urged any other members let ESHA secretariat know of any events they will be attending in the future representing ESHA. j) New members Maria distributed a list of the new members that have joined ESHA since January 2007. Amongst others, new members have come from the UK, Macedonia, Russia, and two from the Small Hydropower Association in Finland, for which we thank Christer Söderberg. Nino Frosio has also become an individual member. All the new members can now be found on ESHA website. 2. Update on Hidroenergia 2008, Bled Slovenia Marko Gospodjinacki could not attend the Governing Board this time, so could not update us on Hidroenergia 2008, 11-13 June in Bled, Slovenia. However, Christine informed the Board that the Call for Papers and packages for participation would be finalised by the summer and all elements would be available by September 2007.
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3.
News from EREC a) Lobbying activities in line with future RES Directive Regarding the policy field, the Renewables Directive, the European Commission set binding targets of 20% renewables by 2020 on 9th March. In relation to how to achieve these targets, EREC co-organized a dinner debate with the European Energy Forum (EEF) at the European Parliament on 8th May. The dinner-debate was presented by Winfried Hoffmann, President of EPIA, and was a lively event, which attracted more than 150 participantans of whom more than 15 MEPs. Following the German Presidency, which has been very supportive in RE matters, the Portuguese seem keen to follow in their footsteps, and have already invited EREC to their Renewables Seminar in Lisbon. Returning to the Directive, each National Member State has to set their national targets. Christine asked the Board to report any national targets from their respective countries. EREC will also be organising a Policy Workshop in January 2008 during the Sustainable Energy Week with the Renewables Directive as its main focus, followed by a policy conference in France in March 2008 in Paris. b) Extension of the REH Christine explained that the REH would be extended to n° 67 rue d’Arlon which would result in an extra 800m2 of floor space for the different associations. Indeed, due to increases of staff, EWEA and EPIA will receive more space, while the rest will be used to physically welcome two other EREC members: ESTELA and EREF. 4.
Miscellaneous
The next ESHA Governing Board meeting & General Assembly will be held during Hydro 2007 in Granada, Spain, on 15th October 2007 from 14.00 – 18.00. A SHERPA meeting will also be planned during this event.
ESHA Secretariat June 2007
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