THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
Growing the future of hydropower – observations from a career in the industry
Entura’s Senior Principal Hydropower, Flavio Campos, knows hydropower inside out. Flavio has recently joined Entura, after working around the world on significant hydropower projects ranging from 30 MW to a whopping 8,240 MW. We asked him to share some of his hydropower journey, what excites him about the future of the sector, and what’s different about conventional hydropower and pumped hydro in supporting the clean energy transition …
When I immigrated from Brazil to Canada in 2012, it was no accident that I settled in Ontario, near Niagara Falls. I had taken a job with a consulting firm that had a hydropower hub strategically located in the Niagara region due to its long history of hydropower.
The Niagara region is the home of the Adams Power Plant, completed in 1886 – the first alternating current (AC) power plant built at scale, delivering an installed capacity of 37 MW at 2,200 V. The voltage is stepped up by a transformer to 11,000 V, allowing for an economic transmission line reaching to the city of Buffalo, NY, 32 km away. The concept was launched by engineer Nikola Tesla in collaboration with George Westinghouse, beating Thomas Edison’s bid, which was based on a direct current (DC) system. Tesla’s dream of harnessing the awesome power of Niagara Falls was realised by the end of the 19th century, when hundreds of small hydropower plants emerged and multiple forms of electricity utilisation spread across the world.
The hydropower boom, led by Brazil and China
When I started my career in the hydropower industry in 1995, I could feel the ongoing impact of the great hydropower boom that was led by Brazil and China through the 1970s and 1980s. In 1999, I was construction manager for Tucurui Dam, one of the biggest hydropower plants in Brazil and the world at that time (now ranked 8th in the world), delivering a total installed capacity of 8,240 MW. As part of my role, in order to raise production to the expected rates, I was able to visit China’s Three Gorges Dam during construction and learn about their techniques and massive concrete operations.
In the 1990s, Brazil’s hydropower industry had plenty of experienced professionals, from construction trading foremen and general superintendents to highly educated engineering professionals from whom I had the privilege to learn.
Since those glorious decades, global hydropower capacity has increased significantly. The strongest period was 2007 to 2016, when more than 30 GW was added per year on average. Since 2017, the industry has slumped to only 22 GW per year on average, with only 13.7 GW installed in 2023. However, it is interesting that of the new 13.7 GW, 6.5 GW was delivered as pumped hydro energy storage.
A new wave of pumped hydro
At a HydroVision International conference in Portland, Oregon, in 2019, I noticed that pumped hydro was a significant topic of discussion. The conference highlighted several factors making pumped hydro projects attractive for the clean energy transition: the ‘battery’ feature itself which helps to balance supply and demand, its contributions to grid stability, its lower environmental impact compared to conventional hydropower, the availability and efficiency of variable-speed units, and the cost comparison against other types of batteries.
Projections of a new wave of pumped storage soon evolved from conference coffee-break chatter to reality: in 2022, more than 10 GW of pumped hydro was delivered, the most ever achieved by the industry. Most of this has been delivered in China, where top-down policies imposed by government can deliver rapid results. Other countries operating on a more open-market basis need to improve the mechanisms to foster pumped hydro so that it can support the grid effectively as other variable renewable energy (VRE) sources, such as wind and solar, proliferate.
There is now consensus that pumped hydro is a necessity for grids to cope with increasing amounts of VRE– and the need is urgent. Pumped hydro, however, requires significant upfront investment in civil works and time to implement. Studies by the IHA indicate that besides the inherent need for additional pumped storage in the grid, the world’s conventional (non-pumped) hydropower installed capacity must double by 2050 in order to achieve net-zero transition targets. This will be challenging, given such a low level of new hydropower worldwide in recent years, and the fact that the most attractive sites have been already developed.
There is also opportunity to re-imagine existing conventional hydropower plants to make the most of their natural battery and firming potential – by operating flexibly to support firming VRE rather than generating for maximum volume. Even where there is no market mechanism to specifically monetise this value, it could be rewarded for national or regional outcomes.
How can we achieve the much-needed growth in conventional hydro and pumped hydro?
Conventional (non-pumped) hydropower has long been recognised for clean energy and the long life of the infrastructure. The challenge now is to identify, gain approvals and sustainably deliver new projects in a world where human occupation is growing fast and reaching into the most remote corners of watersheds. Governments and regulators must assess cost benefits against the social and environmental impacts before giving the green light to new hydropower projects.
Developing pumped hydro can be more flexible, especially when it is a closed-loop system that doesn’t depend on water flows, except for first-time filling and for topping up the losses caused by evaporation. Pumped hydro is not new – in fact, it has existed for more than a century. What is new, however, is the challenge of fostering pumped hydro development at the rate needed.
The IHA has helped clarify what is needed for the industry to develop pumped hydro faster. The IHA’s Guidance Note delivers recommendations to reduce risks and enhance certainty, supporting market players to better understand the issues.
Another interesting initiative in the hydropower journey is XFLEX Hydro, a European initiative which brought together 19 entities such as IHA, EDP, EDF, Alpiq, Bechtel and others, with the objective of increasing hydropower capabilities and flexibility to cope with changing grid profiles. X-Flex has launched 7 pilot projects already – and 4 of these are pumped hydro. This combined initiative has illustrated two important areas of focus that can benefit market players and accelerate uptake:
- The need for a supportive regulatory regime: Policy-makers and other stakeholders need to facilitate the development of regulations or market mechanisms that fairly compensate pumped hydro, as well as conventional hydropower, such as ‘price cap and floor’ mechanisms, compensation for stability features provided by hydropower, and expediting the approval process while ensuring that social and environmental impacts are minimised and mitigated.
- The advantages of evolving technologies, including:
- variable-speed units, increasing flexibility
- hydraulic short-circuit operation, in which the plant can pump and generate simultaneously
- hydro/battery hybrid system, in which the battery works along with hydropower and enhances plant flexibility
- digital/AI control platforms, which can improve the overall grid efficiency and reduce downtime.
Hydropower for a better future
The challenges of rapidly building out new conventional hydropower and pumped hydro are huge. Yet, where there is a will, there is a way. Those of us who understand and believe in the benefits of conventional hydropower and pumped hydro have a duty to bring communities along on the journey and to help build a better future for the next generations.
We look forward to bringing you more of Flavio’s insights into conventional hydropower and pumped hydro in future articles. Flavio is currently contributing to a number of Entura’s assignments including supervising construction on the Genex Kidston PHES project in Queensland, for which Entura is the Owner’s Engineer, and being a key adviser on the Tarraleah upgrade as part of Hydro Tasmania’s Battery of the Nation program.
1 October, 2024
+61 439 010 172