About 75 percent of the electricity is produced in environmentally friendly hydropower plants. In Austria, too, small-scale hydropower plants are becoming increasingly important for energy supply due their environmental compatibility.
Climate Conference: the environmental situation is critical
Almost every year, on the occasion of the World Climate Conference, the Ministers of the Environment agree to further reduce the emissions responsible for the greenhouse effect. Up to 2005, for instance, the emission of carbon monoxide shall be reduced by one fifth. However, this ambitious aim is hardly going to be achieved with caloric power plants. Therefore – and also for economical reasons – atomic power plants have been pushed and politically provided for. Since the Chernobyl disaster at the latest, even the most fervent proponents of nuclear energy have realised that this way of generating power is a serious threat to mankind.
However, more people need more energy, and the way that energy is generated is becoming increasingly important in times when environmental protection is no longer a trend but a vital issue. The environmentally sound use of renewable energies is therefore the focal aim in covering the increasing energy demand of our society. Alternative technologies such as wind power or solar energy are less effective in our latitudes.
Hydropower is ecologically feasible
It is a fact that today hydropower is, from an ecological point of view, the best technology to produce large amounts of electricity. Small-scale plants already contribute a share of about 10 percent to the total amount of power produced in Austria and their significance will further increase. "The White Paper of the European Union is planning 50 percent more small-scale hydropower plants up to 2010 to reach the aims of climate and environmental protection," says Mag. Ulfert Höhne of the Federal Association of Renewable Energies underlining the European-wide significance of these stations.
Small-scale hydropower plants are not only operational energy suppliers for large industrial plants. For the utilities of the individual provinces they have become reliable ancillary power suppliers. However, something is rotten in the "state of streams", especially, when it comes to the tolerance by state-owned energy suppliers.
Dipl.-Ing. Peter Schubert from the GEP Small-scale Power Plant Operating Company is facing a number of problems, "Imports of cheap atomic power from abroad place environmentally sound domestic generators at a disadvantage." Therefore, Schubert has called upon the Austrian government "to support eco-electricity by levying a special fee on atomic or caloric power." This measure would allow Austria’s small-scale power plants to operate in a competitive way.
Uniform regulation needed
Schubert is also criticising the differences in the definition of small-scale power plants, "In Carinthia we have the 4 megawatt limit, in Vorarlberg, however, only a capacity of 2 megawatt." Univ. Prof. Dr. Bernhard Pelikan of the ÖVFK (Austrian Association for the Promotion of Small-scale Power Plants) demands "that in Austria, too, the term small-scale power plant should apply to capacities of up to ten megawatt like in the rest of Europe. This would facilitate the international trade with electricity."
The water expert also criticises the complete dependence on superior energy suppliers, since under the new ELWOG (Electricity Management and Organisation Law) "small-scale power plants are explicitly not licensed to sell directly." A power plant operator, Schubert demands that the ELWOG be amended with regard to the permission of direct selling to the end user in order to reduce the dependence on the EVUs.
Minister for the Environment Martin Bartenstein, representing Austria’s environmental aims at the Climate Conference, demands "to anchor small-scale power plants in a better way upon the next amendment of the ELWOG by a purchasing obligation." This item has only been regulated by a permissive provision. This statement of intent fully tallies with the demands of power plant operators. Hopefully, the Austrian government, too, will share this opinion.
If Austria wants to reach the goals set at the World Climate Conference and to contribute to relieve the atmosphere, it has to continue to promote water power. Today, new large power plants are ecologically very difficult to realise. The more important is therefore the role of small-scale power plants.
(Source: aqua press Int. 06/99)
Dr. Alexander Tempelmayr
