Addressing the ‘multi-faceted challenges of our times’ will require utilising the benefits that low impact US hydropower can provide, Pennsylvania Public Utility Commissioner Ralph Yanora said at the summer meeting of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC).
At the gathering which was held in Texas, a new resolution was passed to support the integration of hydropower as a part of the development, expansion and maintenance of water, wastewater, and stormwater facilities.
Described as adding momentum to the recognition that the US should utilise the positive attributes of hydropower which have been “hiding in plain sight”, the NARUC Resolution provides a path forward for state regulatory commissions, all water entities and affected stakeholders, to engage in dialogue about how retrofitting conduits for hydropower may be in the public interest as a normalised part of utility operations. In addition, the resolution is viewed as being a vehicle to initiate efforts and ensure that regulated utilities have the required tools to achieve the resiliency, environmental and cost efficiency goals that hydropower retrofitted conduits can provide.
As Commissioner Yanora added, low-impact hydropower has another attribute which regulators should not overlook. “While the adoption of low-impact hydropower will undoubtedly serve environmental goals,” he says, “another attribute is that it is a utility investment that advances American prosperity.”
Describing hydropower as a reliable and well-understood generation technology, Yanora added that its expansion and utilisation “do not depend on the whims of global politics”.
“It is a long-lived, domestically sourced and manufactured intermediate good that can contribute to the expansion of our industrial base, and thus, our long-term national security,” he continued. “It also provides considerable economic externalities – those multiplier effects that extend economic benefit both upstream to suppliers and workers and downstream to the users of the clean low-cost power it generates.”
Commissioner Yanora, along with the National Hydropower Association and its members, are currently working to engage with US hydro industry and legislators to build on the goals of the resolution. Consideration also needs to be given to how retrofitting conduits for hydropower could be included in any customer-generator net metering programmes, renewable energy credit markets, and the fair treatment of costs related to the design, construction, and operation of this utility infrastructure.
Good examples of retrofitted conduits and how hydropower can be integrated into treatment plant operations can be found in Pennsylvania, where the Pennsylvania American Water Company’s Nesbitt water treatment plant uses hydropower to cover 75% of plant electric costs. In addition, the US Department of Energy and other federal agencies that oversee fund distribution, are being urged to provide states with maximum flexibility to support the integration of hydropower in order to achieve positive effects on water and energy prices, infrastructure, and associated environmental and public benefits.
Public power
Earlier in the year, the American Public Power Association (APPA) suggested that the US should make full use of its hydropower resources to ensure its grid remains reliable and resilient, and allow utilities to meet emission reduction goals.
At a hearing on 8 March 2023, called “Benefits and Access: The Necessity for Multiple Use of Water Resources” and held by the House Natural Resources Committee’s Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife, and Fisheries, APPA also highlighted the benefits of the federal power marketing administrations (PMAs) – the Bonneville Power Administration, Western Area Power Administration, Southwestern Area Power Administration and Southeastern Power Administration.
In accordance with federal law, PMA rates are set at the levels needed to recover the costs of the initial federal investment, plus interest, in the hydropower and transmission facilities. The PMAs annually review their rates to ensure full cost recovery but none of the costs are borne by taxpayers, APPA noted. Power rates also help to cover the costs of other activities authorised by these multipurpose projects, such as navigation, flood control, water supply, environmental programmes, and recreation.
Scott Corwin, Executive Director, Northwest Public Power Association, noted that although it makes up only 7% of energy capacity nationally, hydropower provides almost 60% of the capacity in the Northwest and almost 90% of the capacity used by Northwest Public Power Association members that have contracts with the federal power marketing administrations.
He said that non-federal hydropower is “subject to an often arduous and lengthy licensing and permitting process” involving multiple federal agencies and other interests while the average time to license a project is seven years and costs three and a half million dollars in paperwork – not counting any environmental or safety or other upgrades.
Corwin pointed out that it took less time to renew Energy Northwest’s licence for its 1200MW nuclear plant than it did for an Energy Northwest 27MW hydro project. “Without change to these unpredictable timelines and costs there is very serious risk of abandonment of projects,” he said.
“We support legislative proposals that would improve the hydropower permitting process and we also support creating a level playing field in tax policy for existing hydropower to receive the treatment similar to other renewable generation,” Corwin added. “The bottom line is we need hydropower because it is efficient, clean, reliable and relatively low cost and, most importantly, because it’s flexible – it can be adjusted quickly to changes in demand.”
Improvement act
Jointly introduced in May 2023 by US Senators Steve Daines and Maria Cantwell, the Community and Hydropower Improvement Act is currently working its way through the US legislative committees. Proposing amendments to the Federal Power Act which was originally enacted in 1920 and authorises the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to issue licences to build, operate, and maintain hydropower facilities, the new act aims to streamline and modernise the hydropower licensing and re-licensing process.
The proposed updates include:
- Expediting the licensing process by directing FERC to establish a two-year process to grant licences for hydropower additions to non-powered dams and a three-year process for lower-impact closed-loop and off-stream pumped storage projects.
- Improving coordination between FERC, federally recognised tribes, and resource agencies in the hydropower licensing, relicensing, and licence surrender processes
- Shifts Federal Power Act mandatory conditioning authority from the US Department of the Interior to a federally recognised Tribe for any project located on land held in trust within the exterior boundaries of a Tribal reservation.
- Clarifying the scope of environmental effects that may be considered in hydropower relicensing and ensuring that mandatory conditions submitted by certain federal agencies address effects of the licensed project.
- Improving the processes for surrendering licenses and removing non-operating dams.
- Coordinating federal decision-making by directing FERC to convene a conference between agencies with conditioning authority and establish a joint schedule, allowing for the timely completion of all federal authorisation decisions.
“The Community and Hydropower Improvement Act is a landmark bipartisan bill that will protect and expand critical hydropower resources by streamlining and expediting the FERC licensing process and improving inter-agency coordination,” says Malcolm Woolf, CEO and President of the National Hydropower Association. “The current permitting process is bogged down with high costs and delays, leading to uncertainty and threatening 17 gigawatts of carbon-free, flexible energy currently on our grid. This strategic package proposes practical improvements to the hydropower permitting process, and with nearly half of the non-federal fleet coming up for relicensing, today’s hearing is a step in the right direction to protecting these vital hydropower resources and ensuring a clean energy future.”
Back in May, the US government also expressed support for hydropower permitting reform, including it on the administration’s priority sheet for clean energy.
“We’ve got to fix the cost and delays that are bogging down the licensing process for hydropower projects. Hydro supplies 37% of zero-carbon power and more than thirty percent of all the non-federal hydropower licences in the US are set to expire by 2030,” said John Podesta, Senior Advisor to the President for Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation. “It’s time to reform the process so we can keep this crucial energy source online.”
Stanford study
Droughts in Western states have resulted in higher carbon emissions and pose a threat to human health as hydropower is replaced by fossil fuels, according to research conducted by Stanford University. When rivers and reservoirs in the American West experience low water levels due to droughts, utilities resort to coal, oil, or natural gas power plants to meet the increased demand for electricity, and it is this switch to fossil fuels which is particularly problematic as heat waves often accompany droughts, leading to higher energy usage, mainly for air conditioning. The new Stanford University study, published on 6 July in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, highlights the significant environmental and economic consequences of drought-induced shifts in energy supply. In future drought years, the study estimates that emissions resulting from this shift could account for up to 40% of all greenhouse gas emissions from electricity in states heavily reliant on hydropower for electricity generation. Over the past two decades, these impacts have collectively cost 11 Western states billions of dollars. In California alone, the increase in fossil fuel generation caused by drought between 2012 and 2016 resulted in damages exceeding US$5 billion.
While between 2001 and 2021, the total health and economic damages resulting from drought-induced fossil electricity generation in Western states amounted to US$20 billion.
The findings underscore the need to consider the social and economic costs of climate change more comprehensively. As droughts become more frequent and severe in the American West due to climate change, failure to account for these effects leads governments to underestimate the financial and societal impacts of global warming. The researchers argue that these overlooked costs emphasise the importance of investing in measures to combat climate change.
The study also shows how the consequences of drought-induced shifts in energy supply extend beyond state borders. When hydropower becomes scarce in Northwestern states that typically export electricity to neighbouring regions, communities in California and the Southwest are affected as fossil fuel power plants are employed to fill the energy gap. The interconnected nature of energy systems exacerbates the impact of climate shocks, illustrating that these damages are not confined to specific locations.
Although the study primarily focuses on the American West, the researchers highlight the global relevance of the issue. Many countries around the world, which heavily rely on hydropower, face increased drought risks due to climate change. Regions where high-emitting coal-fired power plants are likely to replace lost hydropower, the authors warn, will experience even higher economic and health damages resulting from deteriorated air quality and greenhouse gas emissions compared to Western states, where natural gas is more commonly used.
“Our findings have implications for many other parts of the world that depend on hydropower but could face increasing drought,” says Marshall Burke, an associate professor in the global environmental policy area of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability’s social sciences division. “In these regions, drought’s interaction with the energy system can have a cascading series of negative impacts on emissions and health.”
The authors suggest that additional initiatives must be pursued by hydropower-reliant states to achieve their net-zero emission goals in the face of increasingly frequent droughts.
“If we want to solve this issue, we need an even greater expansion of renewable energy alongside better energy storage, so we don’t need to tap into fossil fuels as much,” said lead study author Minghao Qiu, a postdoctoral scholar in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and Stanford Centre for Innovation in Global Health.
RAPID toolkit
Changes to the Clean Water Act and the definition of Waters of the United States (WOTUS) have left uncertainty over whether wetlands qualify as waters. Although, as Caitlin McDermott-Murphy from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) explains, state and federal regulations are designed to protect water quality, they can also increase the cost, risk and timeline to developers of new hydropower projects due to a complex web of shifting regulations.
Aaron Levine, a senior legal and regulatory analyst at NREL, says this isn’t the first time that the WOTUS definition has changed. As an environmental lawyer who oversees the Hydropower Regulatory and Permitting Information Desktop (RAPID) Toolkit, he has curated a library of the federal and state regulations that can impact new or ongoing hydropower projects.
The RAPID Toolkit was developed with funding from the Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office as navigating the complex web of federal and state hydropower regulations can cause major challenges for both new and experienced developers, regulators, and non-governmental organisations.
This free toolkit offers access to information on regulatory and permitting requirements, lessons learned and best practices, case studies, and how-to information while facilitating communication among stakeholders. Since 2015, hydropower stakeholders have provided input to keep the toolkit current and robust.
This year, Levine and his team have been deciphering how recent changes to the Clean Water Act, the WOTUS definition and other new federal and state rules could affect the hydropower industry. For example, the recent Supreme Court ruling determined that any wetlands adjacent to—but not continuously connected to—relatively permanent rivers, streams, lakes, or other bodies of water no longer qualify as WOTUS. That means a hydropower developer may no longer need to apply for a permit to discharge dredged and fill material (often rock, sand, or soil) to stabilise the ground prior to building a transmission line to connect their facility to the grid.
The RAPID Toolkit houses information on National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) environmental reviews for ten agencies, including those that are most often involved in hydropower development: the US Department of Energy, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Bureau of Reclamation, US Army Corps of Engineers, and US Forest Service. New NEPA amendments now require federal agencies to all work together to develop a single environmental review document and tap one of those agencies as the lead agency. It is also likely that agencies will be required to complete environmental assessments within one year and environmental impact statements within two years, whereas they previously were taking at least twice as long. They must also adhere to new, shorter page limits and both changes are intended to accelerate what tends to be a time-consuming process. Developers can now sue a federal agency if they fail to comply, and federal agencies must justify any delays to Congress.
Net-zero Canada
WaterPower Canada has unveiled a comprehensive guidebook aimed at assisting policymakers in unlocking the complete potential of water-generated electricity.
“Hydropower’s Contribution to a Net-Zero Electricity Grid” is a concise and robust report that emphasises the pivotal role of hydropower in shaping Canada’s net-zero future. Simplifying technical concepts, the whitepaper makes topics such as electricity system frequency, net demand and grid ancillary services, easy to understand for readers without technical backgrounds. It also underscores the indispensable grid services that hydropower provides, and offers invaluable insights to Canadian electricity policymakers and various stakeholders within the electricity industry.
Amid Canada’s swift transition towards achieving net-zero carbon emissions, the ongoing evolution of the electrical grid demands the expansion and advancement of transmission networks across broader areas to incorporate variable renewable energy sources. Benefiting from the extensive network of dams and reservoirs that dot the nation’s landscape, hydropower’s significance is poised to escalate further in the future.
“The capabilities provided by hydropower facilities, along with firm generation and long-term storage, will become even more important as operators add variable renewables to their grids,” said Gilbert Bennett, WPC Interim President. “As fossil-fuel generation is retired and variable renewables such as wind and solar generation come online, the consistency of hydropower will continue to be a critical element in maintaining power system reliability.”
As the report concludes: “Canada has a long history and a well-established base of expertise in the planning, development, and operation of hydropower resources. Though the country, in aggregate, is well-endowed with existing and potential hydropower resources, they are dispersed across the country unevenly and a plan to achieve a net-zero grid must also include the supporting infrastructure to seize the opportunity for hydropower resources to enable a reliable and clean grid across all of Canada.
“Providing certain grid services to hydropower-deficient areas from hydropower generation sources that are far away has challenges and cannot alone justify new interregional transmission lines,” the report continues. “However, when combined with the opportunity to deliver additional capacity and energy, enabling the use of long term and seasonal storage, and the ability to provide grid stability, the benefits of access to hydropower and related grid services are far more advantageous.”
Policymakers, in thinking about the near and longer term needs of the country’s electricity supply, are urged to consider developing incentives or policies that will allow for the quicker buildout of hydropower. For example, modification of market rules to better recognise the intrinsic value of hydropower will be a welcome means of incentivising development, while it is also important to encourage more development of the transmission resources that are necessary for ensuring that the benefits of hydropower can be shared among the greatest number of the population.
To tie this all together, the report recommends the development of a pan-Canadian blueprint setting out a shared hydropower strategy – developed collaboratively by the provinces, territories, and federal government and accompanied by investment in public education to explain how hydropower contributes to Canada’s net-zero goals.
South African compliance
The Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) in South Africa has called on mining houses that have not registered their tailings dams on the department’s database to submit their information in order to ensure compliance with dam safety regulations.
The department is currently updating the database of all tailings or mine residue deposit dams in the country that meet the requirements to be classified as dams with a safety risk, and have called on mines to register their dams as required and submit their information.
Dams with a safety risk are those with a minimum height of 5m and able to store more than 50,000m3 of water or water containing substance. The information will be used to update the register and to monitor these dams as required by the National Water Act and the Dam Safety Regulations.
As the department’s Dam Safety Regulation Director, Wally Ramokopa, said: “The department, through the directorate responsible for Dam Safety Regulations, is intensifying regulations on the safety of tailings/mine residue deposit dams across the country to ensure that these storage facilities are regulated, with a view of averting another undesirable occurrence, such as Jagersfontein disaster which occurred in the Free State on 11 September 2022, resulting in loss of lives and properties.”
Ramokopa said it was important to provide the correct information to ensure the dams are registered and compliant, and further advised that the information should be compiled by a registered engineering professional with knowledge of dams and/or tailings storage facilities. The department also advises that it will carry out random inspections to verify the accuracy of provided information and the existence of the dams.
“DWS has engaged the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy in order to get the data of mining houses and as a result correspondence has been sent to the owners of at least 337 tailings dams so that they can be classified as dams with a safety risk should they meet the requirements as stated, and we encourage those mining houses that have not disclosed ownership of tailing dams to register with the department,” Ramokopa said.
Call for more reservoirs
Conservative MPs in southern England have called for more reservoirs to be built to ensure countrywide water security throughout increasingly warm summers.
Tracey Crouch, MP for Chatham and Aylesford, said: “Unless we want to see longer and more regular hosepipe bans or even water shortages during hot summers, we must build more reservoirs.”
Sally-Ann Hart, Tory MP for Hastings and Rye, said: “As the climate changes, we will need more reservoirs to keep the taps running throughout boiling summers, protect wildlife, and enable farmers to keep growing nutritious food. We need to get building and ensure these sites deliver for communities and nature.”
As heat waves continue to put the squeeze on precious water supplies, Philip Dunne, MP and Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, warns that it is only likely to get worse as time goes on.
“Schools have even closed their doors after taps ran dry because demand for water outstripped supply,” he said. “Future projections of hotter, drier summers could result in reduced water levels, with some rivers potentially losing half of their water. There will also be greater demand for water to drink, keep cool and sustain gardens and crops.”
“Astonishingly,” Dunne continued, “we have not built a drinking water reservoir since 1991 despite our population increasing by ten million in the decades since.”
With the National Infrastructure Commission recommending the construction of 30 more reservoirs and new pipelines to move water supplies around the country and ensure water security in the coming decades, Dunne adds that: “we can’t delay”.
“We continue to have our fields concreted over by housing without any proper consideration to infrastructure, including our increasingly scarce water supply. Were one to be proposed in my constituency,” Tracey Crouch added, “I’d happily support any planning application for a reservoir instead of housing development any day of the week.”
Bali Statement
The final version of the International Hydropower Association’s Bali Statement on Powering Sustainable Growth will be unveiled at the conclusion of the 2023 World Hydropower Congress in Bali in November 2023.
The draft version of this landmark document, which builds upon the San José Declaration on Sustainable Hydropower established in 2021, emphasises the crucial role of hydropower in fostering thriving, low-carbon economies driven by renewable energy and outlines the following ten ways hydropower enables sustainable growth:
- Long-lasting, low-carbon electricity generation.
- Management of water resources
- Grid balance through flexibility and dispatchability.
- Synergy with other renewables.
- Green job creation.
- Economic development in local/rural communities.
- Decarbonisation of hard-to-abate industries.
- Climate mitigation and resilience.
- Affordability
- Sustainability.
At the current rate of hydropower development, the Bali statement says that industrial growth in developing regions will rely on the continued production of fossil fuels, and global climate targets will not be met. However, governments and financial institutions are encouraged to work together with the hydropower sector to accelerate progress through three key actions:
- Incentivise sustainable hydropower development through financial and market mechanisms. To meet the objectives of the Paris Agreement and the UN Sustainable Development Goals investment in hydropower needs to double to US$100 billion a year but cannot happen without appropriate market frameworks to incentivise new investment.
- Accelerate the development of renewables through streamlined permitting and licensing. Hydropower planning and approval processes typically take more than five years before a project can even begin construction. Meanwhile, the default option is often to fall back on fossil fuels. The massive deployment of renewables needed to meet global climate goals through sustainable development should be accelerated by streamlining these processes wherever possible.
- Embed hydropower sustainability practices in government regulation. Accelerating development does not mean cutting corners. Application of the Hydropower Sustainability Standard, built and governed through multi-stakeholder consensus, should be integrated into regulatory frameworks to maximise the benefits of projects and mitigate any negative impacts.
This article first appeared in International Water Power magazine.
