Kottulinsky: The aim of the ÖVFK is that hydropower and particularly “small hydropower” is given back the status that it deserves as the most important contributor of renewable energy in Austria.

API: You are claiming a status that has obviously been lost. Can you explain this?

Kottulinsky: With an annual output of about 4,150 gWh we generate 7.5 percent of the total power produced in Austria. In the first version of the EIWOG (power management and organisation law) small hydropower was not regarded as renewable energy like wind, biomass, etc. worth being supported. Austria was the only country in Europe where hydropower from small hydropower stations was not regarded as “renewable energy” and was not treated in a similar way like other renewable forms of energy, although the “Working paper of the European Commission” clearly states “that electricity generated by hydropower is definitely to be regarded as electricity from renewable energy sources.” Last year, however, the ÖVFK succeeded in convincing politics that small hydropower made sense and this was subsequently taken into account in the amendment of the EIWOG. In co-operation and with the help of the Federal Ministry of the Economy it was possible to give small hydropower the status that it deserves.

API: One of the items of the EIWOG amendment is a system of buying and selling “small water certificates.” What is the role of the new regulation?

Kottulinsky: An innovative system promoting free competition was chosen for small hydropower – the “small water certificates.” In the opinion of the ÖVFK it is a solution securing a new survival basis for small hydropower and also providing for the efficient and ecological use of the resources of renewable energy. The implementing regulations have to provide for a special designation for small hydropower stations by the provincial governments which the permission to issue “small water certificates” is connected to.

API: How can this instrument regulate the power flow in Austria?

Kottulinsky: Since the physical power from small hydropower stations cannot be delivered from e.g. Tyrol or Carinthia to Vienna or Burgenland, the instrument of “Kleinwasserzertifikat” was created that enables the Viennese consumer, for example, to prove that he used the stipulated 8 percent of power from small hydropower stations. Large power consumers can buy their power themselves on the international market and have to prove that they have reached the eight percent from small hydropower plants. For this purpose they buy “small water certificates” from domestic small power stations, e.g. via the ÖVFK. For many smaller households and enterprises it is the individual power agent that manages the acquisition of “small water certificates.”

API: Mr. Kottulinsky, thank you for the interview. (Source: API 06/2000)

Interview by Dr. Alexander Tempelmayr