WSHPDR_2013_Final_Report-updated_version

4 Europe
4.1 Eastern Europe
Lara Esser and Guillaume Albrieux, International Center on Small Hydro Power
Introduction to the region
There are 10 countries in Eastern Europe and all of them
use small hydropower (table 1). The dominant climate in
the region is continental and temperate. Eastern Europe
is generally a drier part of Europe. Due to the Russian
Federation’s geographical size and wide range of
climatic conditions it cannot be summarized in the same
way as the other countries.
Table 1
Overview of countries in Eastern Europe
Country
Population
(million)
Rural
population
(%)
Electricity
access
(%)
Electrical
capacity
(MW)
Electricity
generation
(GWh/year)
Hydropower
capacity
(MW)
Hydropower
generation
(GWh/year)
Belarus c 9.64 26 .. 8 445 32 950 15 45
Bulgaria a 7.03 30 .. 11 500 44 831 1 434 5 057
Czech Republic a 10.18 26 .. 20 072 87 560 1 056 2 138
Hungary a 9.96 32 .. 10 108 35 984 54 222
Republic of Moldova a 3.66 .. .. 2 076 3 412 64 318
Poland a 38.42 39 .. 37 367 163 153 900 2 331
Romania ad 21.85 43 .. 20 630 60 385 6 423 19 523
Russian Federation abe 141.75 27 .. 218 145 1 0190 400 46 873 166 483
Slovakia af 5.48 45 .. 8 320 28 135 2 399 3 683
Ukraine c 44.85 .. .. 54 600 172 900 4 711 13 152
Total 292.82 - - 391 263 10 819 710 63 929 212 952
Sources:
a. International Journal on Hydropower and Dams 1
b. Ministry of Energy of Russian Federation 2
c. Energy Regulators Regional Association 3
d. Romania, Autorităţii Naţionale de Reglementare în domeniul Energiei 4
e. Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation 5
f. Slovenska elektrizacna prenosova sustava 6
The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia are
the Visegrad Four countries. i They closely cooperate on
a regional level in the energy sector. Six of the countries
are members of the European Union (EU) namely
Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and
Slovakia. To help EU countries to achieve their
renewable energy targets by 2020, including the
integration of large volume of wind to the European
electricity transmission system, new infrastructure is
crucial. Based on the EU Third Energy Package and the
conclusions of the European Council in February 2011,
an internal harmonized electricity market should be
completed by 2014. Austria, Czech Republic, Germany,
Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia are part of the
Central Eastern Europe regional initiative led by the
Austrian regulatory authority E-Control. The aim of
these regional initiatives is a cross-border continuous
intraday trading system across Europe 7 . As a first step,
this was successfully implemented in September 2012
among Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. 8
Traditional thermal energy and nuclear power are still
the prevalent electricity sources among the countries as
hydropower is not so important, except in the smallersized
nations. For example, Belarus, which became
independent in 1991, is still energy dependent on the
Russian Federation while it is also an important transit
route for Russian oil and natural gas exports to Eastern
Europe. The access to cheap gas from the Russian
Federation and the lack of energy diversification policies
have prevented Belarus from developing its potential
renewable energy resources for electricity generation. 9
Small hydropower definition
The 10 countries in Eastern Europe use various small
hydropower definitions as shown in table 2 below.
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