Project

Green vs Green

Active project

2024–2027

Project contact

Small-scale hydropower, with generating capacity of up to 10MW, can be presented as a renewable and green energy source that we should invest more in, or as an energy source with highly negative effects on rivers and watersheds, leading to an unacceptable loss of aquatic biodiversity. This debate is ongoing at a global level, within the EU, and at a national level in countries that already have small-scale hydropower or the potential for new production. The deployment of renewable energy in Europe in response to climate change and the energy and other crises is accelerating. It is therefore important to consider the risk of taking decisions about deployment of energy systems without adequate consideration of its multiple socio-economic and environmental consequences.

This project seeks to help mitigate such risks by making them visible to energy policy stakeholders, by providing both novel academic findings and policy-relevant knowledge that contributes to sustainability of small-scale hydropower development.

Scope

This project analyses the discourse within the EU and its surrounding regions regarding small-scale hydropower to identify the key claims made about its positive and negative effects. The focus is on actors within the EU, Sweden—which is a mature hydropower producer with many small-scale hydropower plants—and the Western Balkans, a region where hydropower is already utilized to some extent and where further expansion is being discussed.

Aims

The project aims to support European evidence-informed decision making on sustainable and equitable energy transitions by:

Critically analysing the role of small-scale hydropower in energy, environment and development narratives of key actors to provide a better understanding of the politics of energy transitions.
Objectively estimating positive and negative social, energy, economic and environmental basin-level small-scale hydropower impacts, to establish credible global scientific evidence base of the subject.
Providing evidence-informed policy recommendations to public, private and civil society stakeholders to better plan and invest in small-scale hydropower, as the shift away from fossil fuels is increasingly urgent, both for climate and security reasons.

Research gap

The project will inform future research by:

Bridging the gap in evidence on the discursive small-scale hydropower politics.

Highlighting the key knowledge gaps and clusters on small-scale hydropower impacts, thus indicating where research funding should be directed.

Providing methodological guidance on best impact research designs and highlighting current deficiencies in the primary research on the small-scale hydropower impact evaluation.

Contributing to the development of co-creation processes in conflicting contexts.

Activities

The project comprises three workstreams as outlined below:

Small-scale hydropower narratives in Europe: This workstream analyses small-scale hydropower narratives of public, private and civil society actors and compares them across discourses in the EU, Sweden and the Western Balkans. The project will further identify the claims of different policy actors made in the narratives regarding the socio-economic, energy system and environmental impacts of small-scale hydropower plants.
Global scientific evidence base on small-scale hydropower impacts: This workstream will produce a comprehensive scientific evidence base on the selected impacts of small-scale hydropower globally and informed by the narratives identified in the first workstream.
Rigorous and evidence-based decision support: This workstream will deliver policy recommendations and a decision support platform, whilst testing to what extent the small-scale hydropower narratives claims are supported by scientific evidence.