Costs of solutions

One of the goals of the FIThydro project is to determine the financial costs of implementing ecological mitigation measures (solutions). During the project, costs associated with mitigation according to the categories of habitat, fish migration, sediment and flow were collected by consulting FIThydro partners via a questionnaire, examining the latest peer-reviewed literature, directly contacting European operators within the FIThydro network and using publically-available reports (Austria: Österreichs E-Wirtschaft, France: Hydro Electricité, Sweden: Vattenfall).

The following table represents a summary of the results of the cost data obtained for the Deliverable 4.3 General Cost Figures for Relevant Solutions, Methods, Tools and Devices. The detailed report with all results can be accessed via https://www.fithydro.eu/deliverables-tech/ (D4.3). The table is intended to provide a general impression of the cost dimensions for mitigation measures. The values should therefore be interpreted as the ranges of costs for measures, rather than precise costs. The range estimates are based on case studies from different regions (Europe, North America and Australia). The costs from different regions have been converted to EUR using the average 2010-2019 exchange rate (0.82 for USD/EUR and 1.46 for AUD/EUR). Since there was limited information on what each case study included in the costs (planning, construction, monitoring, etc.), the costs are assumed to account for the entire project – unless otherwise specified. The values have been rounded based on expert judgement for improved readability. Minimum costs were rounded down and maximum costs were rounded up to the following increments: 1, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 150, 200, 500, 1000, 2000, 5000, 10000, 150000, 100000, 1000000. If only one value is provided, the cost estimate is based on a single case study. This table does not imply any claim to completeness or freedom from error.

Library of possible measures			Min	Max	Unit	Reference
			[Euro]	[Euro]
Habitat	Instream habitat adjustments	Placement of spawning gravel in the river	10	100	per cubic meter	1,2
		Placement of stones in the river	50	150	per cubic meter	3
		Cleaning of substrate - ripping, ploughing and flushing	1	50	per square meter	3
		Fish refuge under hydropeaking conditions	NA
		Placement of dead wood and debris	10	150	per meter	4
	Restoring habitat	Removal of weirs	2,000	1,000,000	per weir	5,6
		Construction of a 'river-in-the-river'	50	5,000	per meter	7
		Construction of off-channel habitats	1	100	per square meter	8
	Shoreline habitat	Environmental design of embankments and erosion protection	10	150	per meter	3
		Restoration of the riparian zone vegetation	1	50	per square meter	8
Fish migration	Downstream	Migration barrier removal	2,000	1,000,000	per project	5,6
		Operational measures (turbine operations, spillway passage)	NA
		Sensory, behavioural barriers (electricity, light, sound, air-water curtains)	800	4,000	per m3/second	9
		Fish-friendly turbines	500,000		per turbine	10
		Skimming walls (fixed or floating)	3,000		per m3/second	11
		Bypass combined with other solutions	10,000	25,000	per m3/second	12
		Fish guidance structures with narrow bar spacing	2000	40000	per m3/second	11
		Fish guidance structures with wide bar spacing	2000	40000	per m3/second	11
		Bottom-type intakes (Coanda screen, Lepine water intake, etc)	17,000		per m3/second	9
		Other types of fine screens	NA
	Upstream	Complete or partial migration barrier removal	2,000	1,000,000	per project	5,6
		Nature-like fishways	5,000	20,000	per vertical meter	13
		Pool-type fishways	10,000	100,000	per vertical meter	19
		Baffle fishways	5,000	100,000	per vertical meter	5,11,14
		Fishways for eels and lampreys	600		per meter length	16
		Fish lifts, screws, locks, and others	10000	500000	per project	11
		Truck transport	NA
		Vertical slot fishways	5,000	20,000	per vertical meter	13
Sediment	Routing	Drawdown reservoir flushing	1	50	per cubic meter	15,17
		Sediment sluicing	NA
	Removal	By-passing sediments	NA
		Off-channel reservoir storage	NA
		Mechanical removal of fine sediments (dredging)	5	10	per cubic meter	15
		Minimizing sediment arrival to reservoir	150,000		per Vortex tube	18
Environmental flow	General flow regime	Mitigating reduced annual flow and low flow measures	NA
		Mitigating reduced flood peaks, magnitudes, and frequency	NA
	Short-term flow regime	Mitigating rapid, short-term variations in flow (hydro-peaking operations)	NA

Cost data is available on upstream fish migration and habitat measures, whereas data for environmental flow and sediment management is limited. In general, there are two types of costs associated with fish migration facilities, (i) the costs of the structure itself (concrete or nature-like) and (ii) the discharge to run the facility. While the costs of the structure are tangible, the costs associated with flow releases and sediment management depend on several factors. In addition to structural requirements, cost calculations for flow release and sediment management must consider dynamic processes (water regulation and release) as well as long-term adaptive management. Further, these measures are strongly linked to production losses, which can vary (sometimes hourly) based on power prices on the open power market.

As there are no legal requirements or standards for reporting (either publically or privately) the costs of mitigation, the overall data situation is considered poor. A generalization of mitigation costs at hydropower plants is often challenging due to logistical, ecological and political factors. Available data differs greatly by measure type and is highly site-specific. The site-specific nature of hydropower also means that power plant owners face an array of ecological targets. To address multiple targets simultaneously and minimize expenses, operators tend to implement a combination of measures, which makes cost disaggregation for specific measures difficult (e.g., a natural fish pass supports fish migration as well as habitat provision). Thus, information about costs of specific mitigation measures are often difficult to obtain or unavailable. Furthermore, there is a high variability of costs and an inconsistency in reporting, which limits the comparison of costs across a larger number of studies (e.g. no specified information on land acquisition costs, legal costs, material costs, expenses for staff and renting machinery etc.).

References

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