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The Uncommon Dialogue Coalition’s Hydro Infrastructure Investment Proposal
The NHA’s 2021 Waterpower Week panel, “Uncommon Dialogue: Vision for Hydropower in a Clean Energy World.”
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he National Hydropower Association (NHA) is one of a dozen hydropower industry, environmental, and scientific groups that have come together in the Uncommon Dialogue process, a Stanford University initiative to create consensus around hydropower and environmental issues. Recently, this coalition produced a detailed infrastructure spending proposal aimed at Congress and the Biden administration. It envisions $63 billion of investment over 10 years to address climate change, river conservation, hydropower, and public safety. In this interview, NHA Vice President of Government Affairs Zolaikha Strong tells Hydro Leader about the details of the proposal.
and other FERC-related issues dealing with the smart grid. Before coming to the NHA, I started the first North American clean energy initiative for the Global Copper Alliance. The copper industry wanted to have a proactive effort in the energy markets, given that over 60 percent of copper is sold in the form of wiring cable in the electrical markets. In my role at the NHA, I oversee the association’s government affairs efforts and am currently working on some amazing initiatives across the hydro industry, including the Uncommon Dialogue, advancements for pumped storage hydropower, and policies to support the licensing of many of our hydropower facilities.
Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.
Hydro Leader: Please tell our readers about the $63 billion infrastructure investment proposal that the NHA was involved in developing.
28 | HYDRO LEADER | June 2021
Zolaikha Strong: Back in the fall, a robust group of environmentalists, conservationists, folks from the river community, and people from the hydropower industry came together in the Uncommon Dialogue to help accelerate what we call the three Rs: rehabilitation, retrofit, and removal. These efforts will encourage the Biden administration and Congress to advance the clean energy and electricity storage benefits of hydropower while also ensuring the environmental safety and economic benefits of healthy rivers. hydroleadermagazine.com
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE NHA.
Zolaikha Strong: I worked at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for almost 6 years on an array of different issues related to the electric utility industry— everything from assessments of mergers and acquisitions and corporate transactions by electricity companies to generator interconnection, the integration of cogeneration facilities, and ancillary resource integration to ensure reliability. After FERC, I worked at Edison Electric Institute, where I was the manager of transmission policy. I essentially worked on transmission planning, transmission siting, investments,
