Page 5 - AsiaElec Week 26 2021

AsiaElec COMMENTARY AsiaElec

sustainability standards.
The average age of hydropower plants replacements.
(HPPs) in North America is 50 years, and in More than $300bn will be needed to replace
Europe it is 45 years. turbines reaching the end of their lifespan, a
crucial piece of maintenance needed to restore
Green doubts generating performance, which is slipping
Indeed, worries about the sustainability of hydro worldwide, to original levels.
and its impact on the environment stress that The report highlighted the technical advan-
hydro’s state as a renewable form of energy is far tages held by hydro. These include the speed with
from accepted.. which HPPs can ramp their generation up and
One perception is the division of hydro in down compared with other plants powered by
terms of capacity, with power plants under sources such as nuclear, coal and natural gas.
50 MW and using run-of-river technology Secondly, it offers flexibility and storage for
regarded as green. power systems that need to integrate greater
However, larger projects that require intru- amounts of wind and solar power.
sive dams, reservoirs pipelines, and with over 50
MW of capacity, are not thought of as green by Net Zero
some. The view that more needs to be invested in hydro
Furthermore, hydro stands at the nexus of to replace old technology and to accelerate the
related issues governing sustainability and cli- race to net zero echoes the conclusions of the
mate change. over access to water and food, as international Hydropower Association’s (IHA)
well as river flows and sea levels. recent report.
Hydro can cause uncertainty regarding cli- The view that more needs to be invested in
mate change impact on local hydrological condi- hydro to replace old technology and to accelerate
tions, as well as international conflicts over water the race to net zero echoes the conclusions of the
management, the report found. international Hydropower Association’s (IHA)
recent report.
Investment The IHA said in its 2021 Status Report that
Hydro faces long lead times, lengthy permitting installed global hydro capacity had risen by 1.6%
processes, high costs and risks from environ- to 1,330 GW in 2020 but was still falling short.
mental assessments, and opposition from local “At the present rate of hydropower devel-
communities, the report warned. opment, the global energy pathway to net-zero
These can push up investment risks and emissions will not be realised,” warn IHA pres-
financing costs when compared to the falling cost ident Roger Gill and IHA chief executive Eddie
of solar, wind and other storage technologies. Rich in the report’s foreword. “This is a wake-up
Investment-wise, the report warned that call for policymakers, hydropower developers
investment between 2021 and 2020, forecast at and project financiers, and provides clarity for
$540bn, contained just $127bn to be spent on the the public.”
modernisation of elderly infrastructure. Finally, the IEA’s own Net Zero by 2050
This figure of $127bn is just 43% of the invest- report, released in May, called for 2,600 GW
ment actually needed to maintain the perfor- of new hydropower capacity by 2050 to have
mance of the existing fleet’s installed capacity. a chance of keeping global temperature rises
By 2030, more than 20% of the global fleet’s below 1.5 degrees Celsius. That means that the
generating units will be more than 55 years old world needs to build the same amount of capac-
and require major electromechanical equipment ity in the next 30 years as in the previous 100. ™

Week 26 30•June•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P5