At the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (ciwem) National Hydropower conference held yesterday, EA chairman Lord Chris Smith said that 31 licences for hydro schemes were issued last year, compared to only five in 2000. This year the agency has already granted licences for 31 new schemes, with a further 166 applications under consideration.
Currently, there are approximately 400 hydro schemes in England and Wales, and Lord Smith explained this number is expected to rise to 1200 by 2020.
In March this year, the EA released the Hydropower Opportunities and Environmental Sensitivities Map which identified almost 26,000 new locations where small scale hydro power could be deployed in England and Wales. Together, these sites could generate enough electricity to power up to around 850,000 homes and produce 3% of the country’s 2020 renewable electricity needs. In reality, however, only some of these sites could be exploited due to environmental sensitivities, as well as practical constraints such as access to the electricity network.
