Many hurried on this day to file their application and to use the intelligent and integrally efficient instrument – successfully in effect since 1997. It perfectly served the two intended objectives – to activate partially used potentials with a minimum of ecologic strain, and to support the needy, lower output segment of small hydropower. In the final phase, more than 100 applicants tried to receive the grant, a clear proof of the demand.

Now this seems to be the end of it! The main argument for the cancellation was the eco-electricity ordinance, which apparently provides small hydropower with cost-covering tariffs and thus renders further grants obsolete. Far from it! Compared to the EU, Austria’s small hydropower tariffs rank on the third last place.

The mean EU price for electricity produced this way is e 73/MWh (EREF, 2003). Most EU candidate countries and Switzerland have kept up with the time and help raising the share of renewable energies by means of attractive, de facto cost-covering tariffs.

The provinces Upper and Lower Austria have recognised that both the timing is bad and the arguments are poor and have created similar smaller provincial grants to prevent a stagnation in development or even closedowns – at least on the regional level.

A welcome help indeed, but it should not tempt those responsible on the federal level to feel relieved from their duty! Generally, it is hard to perceive why so little value is being attached to the energy of the vital element.

The coming years will be dedicated to the implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD), which will probably mean further losses or costs for small hydropower. How can one break even, if things are tight already now in many cases – particularly in the low-pressure sector?

It is an open secret that environmental protection costs money and that the society has the duty to raise it. If small hydropower is deprived of the financial margin it needs to fulfil ecological objectives and requirements, this will either not happen at all or innumerable bankruptcies and closedowns will ensue. In how far this scenario is compatible with the national obligation to raise the share of renewable energies (Kyoto objectives), will not be easy to explain to the clerks in Brussels!

The day of the death of the good old small hydropower grant therefore has to be at the same time the mental birthday of a new, even better support, which shows vision and wisdom both with regard to ecology and energy management in view of the implementation of the WFD.

But what could be the characteristics of the new grant system? Certainly not an awarding in an indiscriminate manner! An instrument would be reasonable which provides for the extensive covering of the costs of the ecological requirements such as the construction of fish passes or the supply of statutory water. Hardly a small hydropower station would object to a curtailing of its water rights, if a compensation or remuneration is offered in return.

In spite of the fact that the grant was already established in 1997, there are still high development and upgrading potentials for existing plants. After all, this environmentally friendly way of power generation promises a good output in the future and should therefore be maintained. Small hydropower stations worth being subsidised or reconstructed plants could (after due examination) receive the label "Environmental Hydropower Plant" and mark this way the high environmental compatibility of hydropower.

Contact & Information:

BOKU - University of Natural Resources
and Applied Life Sciences
Gregor Mendel Straße 33
A-1180 Vienna
a.o. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Bernhard Pelikan
Tel.: +43/676/33 100 37

Austrian Association for Support
of Small Hydropower Plants
Museumstraße 5
A-1070 Vienna
Tel.: +43-1-5220766