Hydro in Europe: Powering Renewables - Full Report - Eurelectric

1. INTRODUCTION
Hydropower is a mature and cost-competitive renewable energy source. It plays a key
role in today’s electricity mix. As a multifunctional technology, it is indispensable to our
electricity system, and will be even more important tomorrow.
Hydropower is situated at the crossroads of different policies, from water
management to electricity generation or other environmental policies. Already today
hydro power tries to balance these sometimes conflicting objectives.
The importance of a generation technology for the overall system depends mainly on
its capability to stabilise fluctuations between demand and supply. Hydropower
already contributes to balancing these differences – a function that will be even more
valuable in the future.
Major changes ahead in the European electricity market
Europe’s electricity landscape is undergoing profound changes, linked to the aim of a
more renewable and low-carbon energy sector. The EU’s integrated energy and
climate change policy sets the ambitious target of producing 20% of its energy from
renewable sources by 2020. Several countries have already put forth even more
ambitious targets for the following decades. Many projections, and various
commitments taken within the framework of the National Renewable Energy Action
Plans (NREAPs), indicate that increasingly more variable renewables (v-RES) like wind
and solar power will be introduced into the system. As a consequence, power systems
will not only have to follow the varying electricity demand throughout the day, but also
adjust to an increasingly variable power intake.
Ensuring system stability and a continuous flow of electricity by balancing fluctuations
in frequency and voltage will be the challenge of the future. Although details of the
exact future electricity mix are unknown, the increasing share of wind and sun is
already a certainty. According to EU member states’ NREAPs the share of those v-RES
will have tripled by 2020. 1 As a consequence, the electricity system will face ever more
generation-driven fluctuations. These fluctuations will have to be dealt with through
back-up power and flexible generation.
This is where hydropower comes in.
Hydropower – the backbone of a reliable renewable electricity system
By providing the necessary flexibility and storage capacity to ensure the stability of the
electric grid, hydropower already supports the integration of increasing amounts of
wind and solar.
1 EEA Report on NREAPs, 2011. http://www.ecn.nl/docs/library/report/2010/e10069.pdf
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