Bavarian environmental groups fear wave of new hydro power projects
Süddeutsche Zeitung
Environmental groups in Bavaria fear that the latest reform of Germany's Renewable Energy Act (EEG) could lead to a wave of new small hydro power plants in the state, with potentially devastating effects for river ecosystems, Christian Sebald writes for the Süddeutsche Zeitung. The latest EEG says operators of installations with a capacity of up to 500 kilowatts will receive three cents more per kilowatt hour (kWh) than they used to, meaning producing hydro power with new or modernised plants will become more profitable. But for Albert Göttle of the Bavarian State Fisheries Association, there is no expansion potential in the state’s rivers. "We're opposed to building new installations. The effect of hydro power on the energy transition is minuscule," he argued. The state's Bird Protection Society (LBV) and the environmental group BN seconded these concerns, arguing that research had shown little can be done to alleviate the impact of power plants on river fauna, with environmental authorities even proposing to remove some of them. Hydro power is Bavaria's second most important renewable power source after solar PV, boasting 4,250 plants that produced almost a third of all renewable power in the state in 2018. However, the lion's share of that had been produced by the 67 large hydro power plants, whereas 3,910 smaller ones together only provided 7 percent to the power mix. At the same time, almost every river in the state already has a plant.
Germany's government and the EU generally regard hydro power as an expandable asset for scaling up renewable power production, even though environmental groups in Germany and elsewhere in Europe have repeatedly voided concerns the technology could do more harm than good if applied at a large scale, although it can also have positive side effects, such as removing plastic waste from river systems. Hydro power plants produced about 3.5 percent of Germany's electricity in 2019 and most of the plants are situated in more mountainous southern Germany close to the Alps. Many other countries in Europe have a much greater hydropower capacity, for example Austria, Switzerland, Norway or France.
