Hydro Review: 2021 Was Another Year to Remember

The hydropower industry worldwide has undergone some radical transformations in the past two years, influenced primarily by the COVID-19 pandemic. Here are five trends as 2021 draws to a close.

By Elizabeth Ingram

Now that 2021 is in our rear-view mirrors, it’s the perfect time to reflect on what I see as some of the major events and trends of the year for the global hydroelectric power industry. It’s been a challenging year, to say the least. I don’t think very many of us truly understood how our lives would be altered when the COVID-19 virus first reared its ugly head globally in late 2019.

Our HYDROVISION International event is a prime example. HYDROVISION International 2020 was scheduled to be held in Minneapolis, Minn., U.S., in July 2020. In the U.S., most of us went home … for what was just supposed to be a short stay at the time … in March 2020. We thought we could “flatten the curve” in just a few months and then be back in the office, business as usual.

When it became clear the event wouldn’t happen in July, we postponed to November 2020. When we determined that wouldn’t happen in person either, we hosted a virtual event and moved the live HYDROVISION International to our June 2021 dates in Portland, Ore., U.S. Surely by the following June we’d be back to “normal,” right? That optimism was followed by a change of venue to Spokane, Wash., U.S., and another date change to September 2021. And again, unfortunately, due to a surge in the Delta variant, that event could not be held in person, so we delivered virtual content once more and set our sights on July 2022 in Denver, Colo., U.S.

I’m confident we’ll be able to accomplish an in-person HYDROVISION International next year. In one bright spot that bodes well for the future, we were able to hold our 2022 conference planning committee meeting live and in person, in December 2021 in Dallas, Texas, U.S. It was a bit surreal, but very welcome, to be back together face to face, planning the robust content program that will be delivered next July.

All that being said, 2021 was. unfortunately. another unique year in our lives. (I’ll be waiting for a future grandchild to ask me for an interview for a school assignment, because I lived through the COVID-19 pandemic.) And several of the trends I’m identifying below were certainly influenced by this environment. Below is my list of five important trends that in my opinion helped define the global hydropower market in 2021. This is far from a comprehensive list. It’s my take based on having covered the worldwide hydro market for more than 18 years, actively seeking the latest news and information daily.

Virtual united us

2021 was definitely the year of virtual: meetings, training and connections. And while there’s no doubt that situation presented some challenges (with technical problems with Zoom and getting everybody together in “time and space” being just a couple), it also afforded some unique opportunities I’m convinced we otherwise would have missed out on. Again, I’ll use my own experiences to illustrate this.

In the past, our annual HYDROVISION International event attracted people from about 50 countries to the U.S. for a packed agenda of in-person training and networking. However, our non-North American attendees for the event made up only about 10% of the total attendance of 3,000+ hydropower professionals. It was a good number, but it was limited by the challenges of long-distance, physical travel.

Expanding the HYDROVISION International brand through virtual training programs such as our HYDRO+ series, HYDROVISION Exchange, HYDROVISION Connect event, regular webcasts and HYDROVISION International 2021 Virtual Ticket brought this valuable educational content to a much wider international audience than could ever have been achieved at the live event. In fact, for the virtual content we’ve been delivering since April 2020, an astounding nearly 40% of our 150+ speakers to date hailed from outside the U.S. And for our HYDRO+ virtual content, the audience was actually more than 50% non-North American.

There is no way we could have experienced this type of global reach without the pivot to virtual necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic. And while nothing can completely replace in-person meetings, our new virtual world absolutely opened up horizons and changed the way we accomplish our daily tasks.

Think about yourself. How many virtual meetings have you been involved in this year? I’m sure it’s dozens just within your own organization. And when you’ve participated in the plethora of virtual learning opportunities available, how many people have you been able to engage with and learn from to whom you normally wouldn’t be exposed in your daily working life? I’d guess it’s a decent-sized number, and I know it wouldn’t have been possible if we’d gone on in our lives without the pandemic.

I’m very curious to see how the virtual element unfolds over 2022 and how we can retain some of the lessons learned and connections gained once we’re back to face-to-face work, meetings, events, and so on.

Overcoming staffing challenges

I’m going to be as nonpolitical as possible here. Don’t shoot the messenger.

COVID-19 significantly altered the business landscape worldwide. For verification, you only had to look at the sign posted on the door of your favorite restaurant stating its new/altered operational hours, thanks to staff who were quarantined after being exposed to COVID-19 or just lack of adequate staffing.

Nearly every industry experienced some sort of attrition, whether due to layoffs, hiring freezes or the inability to recruit the proper, qualified personnel. Another wave of challenge hit when people were unwilling to receive the COVID-19 vaccine and employers were faced with deciding whether to mandate vaccination and risk alienating workers (on each side of the debate). In many areas of the world, this situation is ongoing.

For the energy industry specifically (not just hydropower), the continued challenge of the majority of the workforce being located “remotely,” at home, meant demand for electricity was down overall. As a result of the drop in demand, and business uncertainty, energy jobs were lost.

I don’t yet have access to 2021 numbers to back this up, but I can illustrate the trends experienced in 2020 and where experts thought hydroelectric employment was headed this year.

In its 2021 U.S. Energy Employment Report (reporting on 2020 trends), the U.S. Department of Energy said employment in the overall sector of “electric power generation, transmission, distribution, storage and fuels” declined 9.8%. Before the pandemic, the energy sector had been one of the fastest-growing job markets in the U.S., with annual growth of 3% from 2015 to 2019. DOE’s analysis showed a total of 839,000 energy jobs were lost in the U.S. alone in 2020.

Specific to hydropower, the report said U.S. jobs declined by 4,640 in 2020. In addition, 89% of all hydropower employers reported that hiring new workers was somewhat difficult of very difficult. At the same time, when this report was released in July 2021, hydroelectric employers anticipated job growth of 2.6% in 2021.

However, as many hydro project operators know from previous years, when ongoing retirements necessitated replacing seasoned workers with new recruits, it’s not “easy” to hire new employees for this industry. This will continue to be an ongoing challenge and one that was certainly highlighted by the overall business landscape in 2021.

Energy storage is hot, hot, hot

In the context of the global energy transition, needed to deal with rapidly changing climate conditions, energy storage is a discussion that will occur more and more frequently. And any discussion of energy storage absolutely must and should include hydropower, both pumped storage and in some cases even conventional storage hydropower facilities.

This is a no-brainer when you consider the fact that pumped storage hydropower is something like 95% of the global installed energy storage capacity, and yet I see so many discussions of storage technologies and needs that don’t even mention hydropower.

In the U.S., pumped storage hydropower is a paradox, in that there is a strong level of interest and yet no actual new development under way. To help spur this development, the U.S. Department of Energy launched the Pumped Storage Hydropower Valuation Tool, a web-based platform that takes users through the valuation process presented in its Pumped Storage Hydropower Valuation Guidebook. DOE hopes these free tools will advance the state-of-the-art in assessing the value of pumped storage plants and their contributions to the power system.

Activity toward new development work IS happening. Most recently, in mid-December Great Divide Energy Park LLC submitted a preliminary permit application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for the 399-MW Great Divide Pumped Storage Hydro Project in Wyoming. And in November, AES Clean Energy named an owner’s engineer for the pumped storage and hydropower portion of the West Kaua`I Energy Project in Hawaii. But none of these have yet gotten over the hump to actual groundbreaking.

Outside of the U.S., there seems to be both stronger support for and greater ongoing development of pumped storage hydropower projects.

Poland said in October it will build new pumped storage power plants to strengthen energy security and ensure a constant supply of electricity.

In Australia, the 2-GW pumped hydro project called Snowy 2.0 is being built at two existing Snowy Scheme reservoirs, delivering not only new power generation at existing infrastructure but hundreds of new jobs and significant economic benefit to the region.

Even Canada is getting in on the act, with the 400-MW Canyon Creek pumped storage project being selected by Emissions Reduction Albert to receive a share of $176 million to accelerate economic recovery and support environmental sustainability in the province.

And activity is under way to strengthen existing pumped storage hydro resources, with rehab and upgrade work such as what ENGIE Electrabel is doing at its 1,080-MW Coo-Trois-Ponts plant in Belgium. A unit upgrade will increase plant capacity by 79 MW and stored energy by 450 MWh when it is completed in four years. In addition, when Poland announced its plan for new pumped storage, it also pledged to modernize the existing facilities, calling pumped storage plants “a powerful battery with huge capacity and energy efficiency.”

I’m confident pumped hydro has a strong role to play in energy storage in the future, so I’ll be keeping a close eye on this technology in 2022 for sure.

Hydro is being included in major discussions and decisions around climate change

Everybody working in hydropower knows the challenge of ensuring this technology has a seat at the table, so to speak, during all discussions around clean, renewable energy and climate change issues. So it’s particularly refreshing that so many ongoing discussions and executive decisions in 2021 have acknowledged and included hydroelectricity.

When U.S. President Joseph Biden signed an Executive Order on Catalyzing Clean Energy Industries and Jobs Through Federal Sustainability, he said “carbon pollution-free electricity” includes hydroelectric and hydrokinetic (including tidal, wave, current and thermal) generation resources.

In addition, the administration’s $1.2 infrastructure bill included $125 million for hydroelectric production incentives, $75 million for hydroelectric efficiency improvement incentives, $553.6 million for hydroelectric resiliency upgrades and $10 million for a pumped storage demonstration project to facilitate long-duration storage of intermittent renewable electricity.

In its World Energy Outlook 2021, the International Energy Agency said the global transition to renewable energy isn’t happening quickly enough to meet net-zero goals and called for “a massive push for clean electrification” that requires investment in electricity infrastructure and all forms of system flexibility, including hydropower.

In Canada, the Electricity Alliance Canada was created in October 2021 to promote the power of electrification to lead the way to a sustainable energy future. With more than 80% of the country’s power supply comes from non-emitting hydroelectric, nuclear, wind, solar and marine renewable generation, it’s certain this alliance will help further hydroelectric development in the country.

Another particularly promising development, in the U.S., was the announcement that the country had rejoined the World Energy Council, in July 2021. The U.S. was a founding member of the council in 1923, and this move signifies a commitment by the government to focus on addressing climate change. By rejoining the network, the U.S. will be able to share its expertise and access best practices for dealing with the energy transition.

The International Hydropower Association, in particular, is working hard to ensure hydroelectricity is included in climate discussions, and I’m excited to watch its successes.

New development work is happening, and the industry is watching

It is always so insightful to me to look into what our readers see as the most interesting or engaging news of the year, reflected in the stories posted on Hydro Review that received the most views. Our audience is truly international, so I do my best to cover the news of the world when it comes to hydroelectric power. But what is everyone most interested in learning about?

Our annual HYDROVISION International event is a good illustration of the breadth of our audience. This event has eight content “tracks” to help make sure we provide something for everyone, no matter their job title or specific work area. But on a given day, or sometimes even a given week, we can’t provide news for every one of those eight work/interest areas. It’s a balancing act for sure.

Below are our top five most-viewed stories posted to the site in 2021:

*Opinion: The benefits of big hydro in Ethiopia

This piece, contributed by Stantec, asks if large hydropower projects are the solution for developing nations, using sub-Saharan Africa, and Ethiopia specifically, as an example.

*Update: Construction on 1,530-MW Tarbela 5^th Extension Project to begin in July

The Pakistan Water and Power Development Authority update on this new project at Tarbela Dam discussed a “landmark project” being constructed under a least-cost energy generation plan to meet increasing demand.

*Hydro Review: Commercializing a New Small Hydropower Technology

This in-depth article discusses Natel Energy’s new small hydropower turbine technology and its potential future applications.

*Hydropower dominates in Brazil, at 62.17% of total installed capacity at the end of 2020

This report, using data from local watchdog Aneel, quantifies total installed electric generating capacity in Brazil and hydropower’s dominant role in the country’s power mix.

*Work on Bhutan’s 600-MW Kholongchhu hydro project likely to start in April

Druk Green Power Corporation Limited updated on status of the development work on its Kholongchhu Hydro Electric Project Ltd., with contracts awarded for civil and hydro mechanical work.

What do the above five stories tell me about the interests of Hydro Review’s global hydropower audience? That they are following and engaging with information around new development work, and the business of hydropower, no matter where in the world it is taking place.

I’m looking forward to 2022 and all it has in store for us. I’m confident the industry will keep pushing forward and the world will get back on its feet and moving into the future with determination and optimism.

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