Atruvia AG
Managing Financial Risks from Hydropower
Article

Managing Financial Risks from Hydropower

Luciano Canale, Gazmend Daci, Hilda Shijaku and Christoph Ungerer
Brookings Institution, 2019
Read the article

Read or listen offline

Amazon Kindle
automatisch generiertes Audio
  • 0.5×
  • 0.75×
  • 1×
  • 1.25×
  • 1.5×
  • 1.75×
1×
automatisch generiertes Audio

Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Analytical
  • Overview
  • For Experts

Recommendation

Hydropower is affordable and environmentally friendly, but it has one major drawback – its reliance on rainfall. In periods of low water supply, hydropower producers have to import energy, at some cost, and governments often must intervene. Energy economists Luciano Canale, Gazmend Daci, Hilda Shijaku and Christoph Ungerer of the World Bank discuss ways of making hydropower more reliable and cost-efficient. Anyone interested in financing alternative energy sources will find this report illuminating.

Summary

Hydropower is a favored form of renewable energy across the globe, but rainfall can be variable. 

Some 35 countries now provide more than 50% of their electricity using hydropower. However, its production is financially volatile, because water supply can be inconsistent. When rainfall and reservoirs are low, energy production falls below consumption.

Hydropower producers must then seek often costly ways of making up the discrepancy, such as by importing electricity. Albania, which is heavily reliant on hydropower, has suffered such a problem; its expenditures on ...

About the Authors

Luciano Canale et al. are energy specialists and economists at the World Bank.

Comment on this summary