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Renewables

Philippine regulator opposes net metering expansion

30 November 2018

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Philippines

The Philippines’ Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) has said the removal of the 100 kW cap for solar installations under net metering would be difficult for the nation’s grid to accomodate. Meanwhile, a proposal to raise the threshhold is being discussed in the country’s Senate.

The Department of Energy (DOE) has issued a statement announcing that the country’s Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) is not in favor of removing the 100 kW size limit for solar power generators installed under net metering.

This could have an adverse effect on transmission lines, which may not be able to accommodate injections of power beyond that limit, said the ERC.

The regulator’s head, Sharon O. Montañer also said that if a bill aimed at removing the above-mentioned cap, currently being discussed in the Senate, were to pass, a new study on the grid’s ability to absorb new output would be necessary.

“With the proposed incentives under the bill, this is expected to result in a drastic increase in solar energy being exported to the grid,” she said, adding, “A thorough grid, system, and distribution impact study would help determine how much in exported capacities the grid may accept without unduly compromising power supply stability.”

The filing of Senate Bill No. 1719 was initiated by Grace Poe, a Filipina senator and businesswoman. “Unlike other power plants, whether fossil-based, hydro, wind or solar farms, rooftop solar does not require land conversions, because it uses what is usually an underutilized and already existing resource – the roof,” she said at a recent hearing at the Senate committee on energy.

“Complete solar photovoltaic systems or solar technology can be bought off-the-shelf and could be easily installed in a few hours. Larger systems may take a few days. No other technology, renewable or otherwise, could match the convenient installation attributed to rooftop solar,” she continued.

The Philippines introduced a net metering scheme for solar systems up to 100 kW, in 2014. However, just 10 MW of rooftop PV systems have been connected to the country’s grid since then.

In a recent report, the U.S.-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) explained the reasons for this failure: administrative and financial hurdles are preventing more electricity consumers from installing rooftop arrays, as well as the resistance of local utilities.

The report also found that the pricing methodology adopted by the ERC has not been improved since 2013. The methodology, based on the amount of electricity exported to the grid, undervalues solar rooftop generation, according to the IEEFA experts, which also said that the 100 kW limit is anachronistic.

Bioenergy

Philippines biogas facility to produce 50,000MWh energy from fruit waste

30 November 2018

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Philippines

Metro Pacific Investments inked a deal with Dole Philippines for the $19.05m project.

The Philippines’ Metro Pacific Investments Corporation (MPI) inked a deal with agricultural producer Dole Philippines, Inc. (DPI) to design, construct, and operate facilities that will process fruit waste and produce around 50,000MWh of biogas. MPI has set aside $19.05m (Php1b) for the project.

According to an exchange announcement, the biogas facilities will complement DPI’s existing operations by processing organic fruit waste from its Surallah and Polomolok facilities in South Cotabato, Mindanao. The biogas energy will be used by DPI for power generation and fossil fuel substitute.

MPI’s subsidiary Metpower Venture Partners Holdings, Inc. (MVPHI), through Surallah Biogas Ventures Corporation (SBVC), signed the agreement with DPI. “The project serves as MPI’s first foray in bio-energy and will serve as a catalyst for a highly scalable waste-to-energy platform it plans to build in the Philippines through MVPHI,” MPI said.

The project is expected to trim CO2 reduction by approximately 100,000 tonnes per year.

Bioenergy

Govt plans to double B20 biodiesel consumption next year

30 November 2018

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Indonesia

The government plans to double the consumption of 20 percent blended biodiesel ( B20 ) amid the declining price of palm oil on the global market.

Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry Renewable Energy Director General Rida Mulyana said on Monday that the B20 consumption target for next year would be 6.2 million kiloliters.

“We expect there will be an increase in the consumption of B20 by 3 million kiloliters [next year],” he said as quoted by kompas.com, adding that the state-owned electricity company alone was expected to consume about 700,000 kl of B20 next year.

“The consumption increase is expected to help boost the crude palm oil [CPO] price and help oil palm growers.”

As one of the word’s largest CPO producing country, Indonesia was hit hard by the sudden decline in the commodity’s price to around US$420 per ton from around $530, last week.

In response, the government has temporarily removed the export levy that was usually charged by the Indonesian Oil Palm Estate Fund (BPDP-KS) for replanting.

The government introduced the mandatory use of B20 in early September as part of its efforts to reduce crude oil imports that have contributed to the widening trade deficit and current account deficit. (bbn)

Energy Cooperation

Pence in Southeast Asia: Ways forward for U.S.-ASEAN cooperation on infrastructure development

30 November 2018

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ASEAN

Vice President Pence’s speeches in Singapore and Papua New Guinea in mid-November not only reaffirmed Washington’s commitment in the Indo-Pacific, but also articulated U.S. economic strategy toward the region more generally. He said, among other things, that Washington will seek to reform U.S. development finance institutions and create a U.S.-ASEAN Smart Cities Partnership. While such progress is laudable, much remains to be done to move forward U.S.-ASEAN cooperation on infrastructure development.

A Broader U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy

Speaking at the 6th U.S.-ASEAN Summit in Singapore on November 15, Pence reassured regional states of America’s commitment, stressing that ASEAN is Washington’s “indispensable and irreplaceable strategic partner.” He added: “We recognize that our interests are intertwined and our visions are truly the same.” He also reiterated the Trump administration’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy, which envisages an inclusive region that respects the “sovereignty of our nations and the international rules of order” and where “empire and aggression have no place.” Touching on the strategy’s economic components, the vice president said they include Washington’s measures to spur trade, private investment, and infrastructure across the region.

He further articulated these elements at the APEC CEO Summit on November 17, where he echoed President Trump’s remark at that venue last year that the United States will seek bilateral trade agreements with Indo-Pacific nations in line with “the principles of fair and reciprocal trade.” The United States furthermore seeks to promote private sector investment as well as sustainable infrastructure development, Pence said. In a veiled jab at China’s development lending practices, Pence said that the U.S. approach will not “drown our partners in a sea of debt. We don’t coerce or compromise your independence.”

Since President Trump unveiled Washington’s plans regarding regional infrastructure development at the APEC CEO Summit in November 2017, the United States has taken measures to realize them. Pence announced the creation of a U.S.-ASEAN Smart Cities Partnership, which aims to catalyze American investment in digital infrastructure, spur growth and development, and strengthen security in Southeast Asia. This partnership is well-received by Southeast Asian nations as it provides additional proof of the Trump administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy.

Another case in point is the recently passed BUILD (Better Utilization of Investments Leading to Development) Act. This legislation heightens Washington’s connectivity assistance in the Indo-Pacific region by creating the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (IDFC) and folding under it the activities of several American development finance mechanisms, including the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, USAID’s Development Credit Authority, and USAID’s Office of Private Capital and Microenterprise. The law also allows IDFC “to make equity investment, a doubling of the contingent liability ceiling to $60 billion.” Overall, the Partnership is seen as another tangible outcome of Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy.

Towards Better U.S.-ASEAN Cooperation on Infrastructure Development

Going forward, much needs to be done to further enhance collaboration on infrastructure development between Washington and Southeast Asian countries. For example, although the U.S.-ASEAN Smart Cities Partnership is laudable, it is not yet clear exactly how it will be implemented in ways that complement ASEAN’s agendas, namely the ASEAN Smart Cities Network (ASCN). Launched at the 32nd ASEAN Summit in April, ASCN strives to achieve smart and sustainable development by leveraging technology to provide public services, address urbanization-related challenges, and improve citizens’ quality of life. ASCN also welcomes non-ASEAN members’ assistance as it seeks to “secure funding and support from ASEAN’s external partners.” Therefore, Washington and Southeast Asian policymakers should explore modalities for providing financial and other kinds of assistance to ensure that ASCN’s objective is realized.

Also, Washington and ASEAN should think about how to cooperate on sustainable development, as it will be next year’s ASEAN theme. Thailand, which will formally assume the organization’s chair on January 1, 2019, unveiled the theme of “Advancing Partnership for Sustainability,” which prioritizes achieving sustainable development in several fields ranging from security to economy. This begets opportunities for the United States and Southeast Asian nations to continue their collaboration. For instance, in 2016 Washington coined U.S.-ASEAN Connect initiative to augment U.S. economic engagement with Southeast Asia in the realms of business, energy, innovation, and policy. Business Connect aims to boost commercial ties among American and Southeast Asian enterprises in infrastructure development and information and communication technology. Energy Connect supports ASEAN’s power sector by leveraging sustainable and innovative technologies. Innovation Connect aspires to create an ecosystem encouraging future innovators and entrepreneurs. Policy Connect seeks to help ASEAN economies realize the regulatory environment for growth, trade, and investment. This scheme has the potential to develop further. Hence, American and Southeast Asian officials should jointly explore how to create synergies between U.S.-ASEAN Connect and ASEAN’s sustainable development programs.

Moreover, the United States should participate in policy discussions hosted by the ASEAN Centre for Sustainable Development Studies and Dialogue (ACSDSD) slated to be established in Thailand next year. The mechanism will support the implementation of sustainable development projects and foster dialogues among ASEAN and its development partners (ASEAN’s dialogue partners, regional organizations assisting ASEAN on economic and infrastructure development, and Germany). Joining the discussions would not only enable the United States to find additional synergies among its projects and those implemented by ASEAN, but also keep Washington informed about other partners’ development agendas. Knowing the latter can help Washington better coordinate with non-ASEAN players to avoid wasting resources. For instance, uncoordinated efforts may result in different players providing capacity training programs on overlapping sustainable development topics. In short, by engaging ACSDSD, Washington, Southeast Asian states, and other stakeholders can find opportunities to jointly enhance complementarities and diminish competition among their initiatives.

Engaging in all of the above would benefit both regional states and Washington. U.S. assistance would enhance transnational supply chains, which will in turn increase market opportunities for U.S. businesses. It will also further tighten U.S.-ASEAN ties and elevate U.S. leadership in these areas. Countries in Southeast Asia, for their part, stand to benefit from U.S. cooperation, support, and leadership in the region. Working together yields a win-win.

Renewables

Thailand leads the SEA region for solar development

30 November 2018

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Thailand

Thailand is the regional leader in total installed renewable capacity in Southeast Asia.The latest Alternative Energy Development Plan (AEDP) 2015-36 sets a target for renewables to account for 20% of generation by 2036.

It was the first country in SEA to implement a feed-in premium intended to spur investment and development of renewable energy projects.

Thailand’s power market is partially liberalized, with the generation sector opened up to the participation from private players.

Thailand has achieved 100% electrification. In the 2015 PDP, total electricity demand is Fundamentals forecasted to increase at an average growth rate of 2.68% in the period 2014-36.

Stimulated by the attractive feed-in premium, also known as the ‘adder’, introduced in 2007, renewable energy capacity has grown significantly. Between 2010 to 1H 2018, asset financing for renewable projects totaled $9.7 billion.

Developing Nations assume mantle of global clean energy leadership

Since 2010, developing countries have collectively accounted for a larger share than wealthier countries of clean energy asset finance, a category that includes capital for wind, solar, geothermal, biomass and small hydro projects.

Figure 1: Wind/solar vs. fossil-fueled power-generating capacity added in developing nations, 2017. Source: BloombergNEF

Surging electricity demand, sinking technology costs, and innovative policy-making have allowed developing nations to seize the mantle of global clean energy leadership from wealthier countries, a comprehensive new study from BloombergNEF (BNEF) concludes.

Between them, emerging market nations surveyed by BNEF’s annual Climatescope (www.global-climatescope.org) project accounted for the majorities of new clean energy capacity added and new funds deployed, globally in 2017.

Driving down clean energy costs

These countries are also playing the leading role in driving down clean energy costs, so that energy access can be expanded without boosting CO₂ emissions.

In 2017, developing nations added 114GW of zero-carbon generating capacity of all types[1], with 94GW of wind and solar generating capacity alone – both all-time records. Concurrently, they brought on line the least new coal-fired power generating capacity since at least 2006.

New coal build in 2017 fell 38% year-on-year to 48GW. That represents half of what was added in 2015 when the market peaked at 97GW of coal commissioned.

“It’s been quite a turnaround. Just a few years ago, some argued that less developed nations could not, or even should not, expand power generation with zero-carbon sources because these were too expensive,” said Dario Traum, BNEF senior associate and Climatescope project manager. “Today, these countries are leading the charge when it comes to deployment, investment, policy innovation and cost reductions.”

This shift is being driven by the rapidly improving economics of clean energy technologies, most notably wind and solar.

Thanks to exceptional natural resources in many developing countries and dramatically lower equipment costs, new renewables projects now regularly outcompete new fossil plants on price – without the benefit of subsidies.

This has been most apparent in the more-than-28GW contracted through tenders in emerging markets in 2017, involving promises from developers to deliver wind for as low as $17.7/MWh and solar for as little as $18.9/MWh.

Clean energy dollars are flowing

Climatescope also revealed that clean energy dollars are flowing to more nations than ever. As of year-end 2017, some 54 developing countries had recorded investment in at least one utility-scale wind farm and 76 countries had received financing for solar projects of 1.5MW or larger. That’s up from 20 and 3, respectively, a decade ago.

Renewables

Southeast Asia one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change: Eco-Business report

30 November 2018

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ASEAN

Southeast Asia is one of the most vulnerable regions in the world to climate change, with coastlines and densely populated low-lying areas that are increasingly threatened by rising sea levels, according to a study by Eco-Business.

The new report on Asean’s energy landscape titled “Power Trip: Southeast Asia’s journey to a low carbon economy” found that Southeast Asian countries are beginning to transform the way energy is produced and consumed in order to transition to a low carbon, sustainable economy. This includes switching to clean energy sources, introducing policies to reduce emissions, and re-evaluating businesses and assets which may be exposed to the effects of climate change.

This comes on the back of a forecast by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) that climate change could potentially shave off 11 per cent off the region’s gross domestic product (GDP) by the end of the century if left unchecked.

Key findings showed that the top three sectors most in need of investment in the region were renewable energy and storage, clean energy public transport systems and energy efficient technologies and innovations.

Meanwhile, the top drivers in the transition to a low carbon economy were business leadership, local government initiatives, and consumer pressure and purchasing habits, while the top two barriers to the transition were insufficient policy or regulation and lack of access to funding.

The report also found that changes anticipated in this transition were that there would be increased environmental regulations; consumers and businesses would have more clean energy options and services; and investors and fund managers would reduce their investment exposure to high carbon assets and businesses.

Tim Hill, Research Director for Eco-Business who led the white paper, said: “Although we noted some concerns about the pace of uptake of clean energy in some of the countries, it is clear that the technologies underlying the whole transition are enabling a more resilient and less polluted world – and there are going to be a lot of business opportunities in this new era.”

This report surveyed 562 senior government, business and civic society executives from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam between August and September 2018.

Oil & Gas

Government to increase utilization of natural gas for energy

30 November 2018

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Indonesia

Medan, N. Sumatra (ANTARA News) – The government will continue to increase utilization of natural gas for fuel from 19 percent of the national energy consumption at present to 24 percent in 2050.

The increase in the utilization of natural gas is in line with the Regulation of the Government No 79 of 2014 on the National Energy Policy, head of Upstream Oil and Gas Regulator (BPH Migas) M Fanshurullah Asa said here on Sunday.

In 2036, the entire production of natural gas is expected to be used domestically in 2036 at the latest, Fanshurullah said.

In 2017, around 58.59 percent of the country`s gas production was for domestic consumption with 41.41 percent exported, he said.

Meanwhile, BPH Migas is improving services and protection of consumers, he said.

Based on data from Asean Centre for Energy, natural gas portion in energy mix in ASEAN is 24 percent.

Beside as fuel, natural gas is used as feedstock in industries such as in fertilizer industry and in power plants.

Development of gas pipe of Trans-ASEAN, would increase demand for natural gas, Fanshurullah said.

Indonesia has a reserve of 142.72 trillion Standards Cubic Feet of gas a clean source of energy and environmentally friendly.

Renewables

After a Long Boom, an Uncertain Future for Big Dam Projects

30 November 2018

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Lao PDR

The rise of wind and solar power, coupled with the increasing social, environmental and financial costs of hydropower projects, could spell the end of an era of big dams. But even anti-dam activists say it’s too early to declare the demise of large-scale hydro.

The last few years have been turbulent for the global dam industry.

In July, flooding caused a dam under construction in Laos to collapse, releasing an inland tsunami that drowned hundreds of people — estimates of the number killed start at 200 and go up by multiples of that. The torrent devastated the homes and farmland of about 6,600 people, most of who now live in tents.

In April, landslides at the Ituango Dam, near completion in Colombia, clogged a tunnel used to divert river water from the project. The resulting flooding forced the evacuation of at least 25,000 people and placed the entire $5 billion project in jeopardy.

Two years ago, the United States’ tallest dam, Oroville Dam in northern California, nearly collapsed, prompting the evacuation of 190,000 people. Repairs cost $1.1 billion^⁠.

In 2016, unprecedented drought in southern Africa reduced the water level of the world’s biggest reservoir, Lake Kariba, to 12 percent of its capacity^⁠, inducing food shortages and extensive power blackouts that hamstrung the economies of Zambia and Zimbabwe. Similarly, reservoir levels at the Hoover Dam — the Colorado River dam that ushered in the modern hydropower era — have been steadily dropping as a result of a prolonged regional drought. Both predicaments have laid bare dams’ vulnerability to climate change.

Global investment in wind and solar energy now far outpaces investment in hydropower.

Major dam projects have been cancelled or suspended in Myanmar, Thailand, Chile, and Brazil. In some cases, investors have lost hundreds of millions of dollars. The World Bank, whose investment decisions influence other lenders, announced a rediscovered enthusiasm^⁠ for large dams in 2013, but since then has again reversed direction. The bank now supports “only a very few large hydropower projects at any given time,” according to Riccardo Puliti, a World Bank senior director. Chinese companies long ago overtook the bank as the world’s leading financier and builder of international dams.

Global investment in wind and solar energy now far outpaces investment in hydropower. Compared to hydropower capacity investment last year, solar was three to four times greater and wind was more than double, according to a United Nations Environment Program report^⁠. Even the China Three Gorges Dam Corporation, which built the world’s largest dam on China’s Yangtze River, now invests heavily in wind and solar energy project. Richard M. Taylor, chief executive of the International Hydropower Association (IHA) — which represents dam planners, builders, and owners in more than 100 countries — said in an interview that “the energy market has been quite challenging,”^⁠ in part because wind and solar plants offer electricity at extremely low prices. As a result, Taylor said, “The market share of hydro versus wind, bioenergy, and solar photovoltaics is diminishing.”

Thayer Scudder, an 88-year-old American anthropologist considered the world’s leading authority on dam resettlement, published a book in September tracing his career-long evolution from dam enthusiast to opponent. A frequent consultant on World Bank dam projects, Scudder concluded, “What I learned was that important short- and medium-term benefits of large dams tend to be followed by major and unacceptable longer-term economic, environmental, and social costs, including costs for more than a half-billion project-affected people living in dammed river basins.”

The environmental costs of dams have been well documented. They devastate fisheries by blocking fish migration and the downstream flow of nutrients to estuaries, and they upset river hydrological regimes that plants, animals — and humans — depend on. They are often touted as generators of clean energy, but even that assertion is being undermined by increasing evidence of substantial methane emissions from reservoirs.

All this has reduced dams’ stature by a notch, and has left some experts speculating that the industry has reached “peak dams” — the point at which the number of dams built annually levels off and begins to fall. But too many dams are still being built to justify the assertion. Dams are still going up at a rapid rate in Africa, Southeast Asia, and China. Among the projects being planned or proposed are the Congo River’s $80 billion Grand Inga Dam, which would replace Three Gorges Dam as the world’s largest, and Tanzania’s $3.6 billion Stiegler’s Gorge Dam, which would inundate a World Heritage site.

As a result, not even anti-dam activists claim that the world has reached “peak dams.” Josh Klemm, policy director at International Rivers, which offers guidance to community groups across the globe that are threatened by dam projects, said in an interview that while growth in the dam industry has been static over the last decade, in the future it could just as easily expand as contract.

Scientific journals now frequently publish articles undercutting key assumptions about dams. Probably the best-known research, a 2014 Oxford University study of 245 large dams built between 1934 and 2007, concluded that without even taking into account dams’ vast social and environmental costs, they are too expensive “to yield a positive return”— that is, the dams aren’t cost-effective. The study found that on average dams’ actual costs were 96 percent higher than their estimated costs^⁠, and the average project took 44 percent longer to build than predicted. According to data^⁠ published last year by Bent Flyvbjerg, one of the authors of the Oxford study, compared to other energy technologies, only nuclear power has a worse record for cost and schedule overruns than dams; solar and wind projects are at the top of the list.

The huge costs of dams invite corruption and often take up a significant portion of the host nations’ financial resources.

What’s so striking about all this documentation is that it has had relatively little impact on the quantity and quality of dam construction. Environmentalists argue that the studies should invalidate dams, while lenders, builders, and their politician-allies go on making money from dams. The two realms barely overlap.

Scudder’s distinction between the short- and long-term impacts of dams comprises a big part of the explanation. In calculating cost-effectiveness, scholars and environmentalists focus on dams’ performance over their operating lifetimes, which could be a century or longer, while politicians and lenders are interested in the first decade or two of a dam’s life span at most. Few politicians think beyond the expected end of their rule; they like dams because they promise electricity for industries and cities, and the sight of water spewing out of their sluice gates is a dramatic manifestation of power— dams are superb backdrops for ribbon-cutting ceremonies.

Cost-effectiveness doesn’t interest dam lenders, either; what they want to know is whether their 10- or 15-year loan^⁠ will be paid off. Since the loans often commence at the beginning of construction, which could take as long as a decade, the loans may be outstanding for only the first few years of a dam’s operations, before all its negative consequences — financial, social, and environmental — surface.

“The issue isn’t cost-effectiveness,” James Dalton, global water program director for the International Union for Conservation of Nature, told me. “The issue is, ‘When do we get our money back, when do we make our killing on this?’ — and the debt is left to the state. It’s not based on the science or economics of building the dam — it’s a political choice.”

Large dam projects cost billions of dollars. The huge sums invite corruption, and often take up a significant portion of the host nations’ financial resources. The loans get paid off, and the lender— such as the World Bank— calls the project a success. But long after the dams are built, the host country may experience a debt crisis. From the 1980s on, dam cost overruns played major parts in debt crises in Turkey, Brazil, Mexico, and the former Yugoslavia^⁠.

The Oxford study cites the example of Tarbela Dam, the world’s largest earthen dam, which intersects the Indus River in Pakistan. Back in 1968, when the project was launched, the loan included a 7.5 percent contingency charge to cover inflation and possible construction setbacks. But the project wasn’t completed until 1984, eight years behind schedule, by which time inflation over the construction period reached 380 percent. The dam then cost nearly four times its initial budget, and amounted to nearly a quarter of the increase in Pakistan’s external debt over the period of construction^⁠.

Dams in the Oxford study took an average of 8.6 years to build. Their gestation period — even longer when years of planning, contract negotiations, and licensing are included — relieves politicians of accountability for them: When things go bad, the leaders who initiated the project are no longer in power, and their replacements blame problems on their predecessors.

The trouble, of course, is that, as Flyvbjerg, a professor at Oxford’s Said Business School, said in an email, “This lack of accountability generates significant risks for those who ultimately pick up the bill for projects if they go wrong, be they taxpayers or shareholders.” Those costs also include the usually grievous harm done to people displaced by dams, a number now much greater than the 40 to 80 million people conservatively estimated by the World Commission on Dams in 2000, and the damage dealt to a majority of the world’s river systems and fisheries, enough to cut into the livelihoods of another half-billion people^⁠ living downstream from dams.

The likelihood of longer droughts and more intense floods as a result of climate change undermines the case for dams.

The disparity in time frames also applies to climate change. On the face of it, the likelihood of longer droughts and more intense floods as a result of climate change seems to undermine the case for dams: They must be built larger to accommodate massive floods but smaller to justify their construction expense during droughts. Dam managers face conflicting imperatives: Reservoir water levels must be kept low so that no water needs to be released during floods, but low reservoir levels hamper electricity generation, the chief purpose of most large dams.

Dam advocates seem inclined to dismiss massive floods and droughts as infrequent occurrences that can be overcome with good engineering — even though, for example, the Amazon basin has undergone three unprecedented droughts and three extreme flooding years^⁠ since 2005. Indeed, the website of the International Hydropower Association claims that the ostensibly steady flow of electricity generated by hydropower — so-called “base load” energy — is needed to offset the intermittency of electricity from wind and solar plants.

But events like the southern Africa drought that crippled Kariba Dam have struck at the idea of hydropower’s reliability, and an alternative idea — that dams ought to be used as supplements for wind and solar plants — is spreading. One of the fastest-growing segments of the hydropower industry is pumped hydro, which involves pumping water upstream into dams when electricity rates are low, usually at night, and then releasing it in the afternoon, when rates are high— in essence, it provides backup, not base-load, power.

The IHA touts dams as a clean technology, but that’s not quite true: Many reservoirs emit substantial amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas released by decomposing vegetation and other organic matter that collect in oxygen-poor reservoirs. A 2016 study in BioScience found that methane emissions from reservoirs constitute 1.3 percent all of global human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, and the highest-emitting reservoirs rival coal-fired power plants^⁠. It is commonly assumed that methane emissions occur chiefly in shallow, tropical reservoirs, as if it’s a problem for only a small number of dam projects. But according to John Harrison, a professor at Washington State University’s School of the Environment and one of the study’s authors, “There is strong and growing evidence^⁠ that temperate reservoirs can produce methane at rates comparable to those reported from tropical reservoirs.”

Even so, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which sets standards for measuring nations’ greenhouse gas emissions, doesn’t include reservoir emissions in its calculations; the IPCC is considering changing that policy next year. Growing understanding of the factors causing reservoir-generated methane could at least guide decisions about siting dams, avoiding places certain to produce high emissions.

The IHA acknowledges that many reservoirs emit methane, but it puts a different spin on the phenomenon. It cites its own study^⁠ — cosponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, but not peer-reviewed — that “indicates that hydropower is one of the cleanest energy sources.” According to the study, only wind and nuclear energy emit less methane than reservoirs, and coal-fired power plants emit more than 40 times more. Therefore, the IHA concludes, countries that are reliant on coal should switch to hydropower.

But it is perhaps a measure of hydropower’s more modest standing in the world that the industry no longer presents itself strictly as the producer of stand-alone monuments of perpetual electricity generation, the way people once thought of Hoover Dam. Instead, the industry increasingly is offering to produce “smart dams” that complement other renewable electricity sources. The combination could, for example, address seasonal variations in precipitation by relying on solar power during the dry season and hydropower during the rainy season, when clouds impede solar power. Some reservoirs, most notably in China, now feature floating solar panels that simultaneously avoid occupying valuable land, reduce reservoir evaporation, and take advantage of existing power lines that distribute electricity from the dams.

“The existing hydropower fleet represents a tremendous opportunity to enable other renewable technologies” — wind, solar, and biomass — “to prosper,” Taylor, IHA’s executive director, said. “I think that’s starting to be understood.”

News Clipping

A Broader U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy

Towards Better U.S.-ASEAN Cooperation on Infrastructure Development

Developing Nations assume mantle of global clean energy leadership

Driving down clean energy costs

Clean energy dollars are flowing

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