The National Hydropower Association (NHA) has unveiled a new education campaign. Unlock Hydro aims to generate awareness about hydropower’s ability to help the US fight climate change, and will educate the public about the outdated licensing process that keeps hydropower from realising its clean energy potential.
“As a nation, if we are serious about decreasing carbon emissions and expanding clean energy solutions, we simply can’t allow hydropower to be hindered by a process that can take up to ten years," says Linda Church Ciocci, NHA’s Executive Director. "Unless and until we have a system that exemplifies efficiency, timeliness and accountability, America’s largest source of renewable energy will continue to be held back. With this campaign, we hope to empower and encourage Americans to let their representatives know how important waterpower is to our clean energy future."
At a time when the US is looking for clean energy solutions, NHA says that hydropower is hamstrung by a licensing process that lacks coordination, resulting in duplicate reviews, conflicting priorities, and deferred decision-making that delays both project deployment and real environmental improvements. It adds that you can permit a fossil fuel plant in New York City in a mere fraction of the time it takes to license a hydropower project. By comparison, it only takes 18-24 months to license a natural gas combined cycle plant.
At present out of the dozens of existing hydropower projects awaiting approval, nearly 40% have been delayed by at least five years past the licence expiration date. On top of that, nearly 20% of pending relicensing applications have been delayed at least eight years past the licence expiration date.
The problem will heighten over the next 15 years as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) expects over 500 projects to begin the relicensing process; representing more than 16,000MW of installed capacity (30% of the total hydropower capacity under FERC’s jurisdiction).
NHA warns that the costs and inefficiencies of the current relicensing process could render many of these projects uneconomic, risking the loss of an important renewable energy resource.
