HYDRO4U Special Session at the ASIA 2023 Conference

This year, the global water and energy community got together at the ASIA 2023 conference from 14^th to 16^th of March, where participants had the opportunity to attend various sessions on topics such as environmental aspects of hydro and dam development, but also on the topic of European innovations in Central Asia.

For this, a special session was jointly organized by the IEA Hydropower Technology Collaboration Program (TCP) and the Hydro4U innovation project. Recent activities of the IEA Hydro are increasingly focusing on valuating of and technical solutions for additional services provided by hydropower, such as flood control and drought management, flexibility on multiple scales, storage, or hybridization, not only for individual plants but also in large river basins.

Within Hydro4U, sustainable design and operation of innovative European small hydropower technology will be demonstrated at two pilot sites currently under development in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan as well as additional planning sites. The technological innovation at the two demo sites is based on the low-head Hydroshaft concept and a medium-head Francis container solution. Both technologies are developed in combination with sustainability aspects such as fish habitat protection and passage in both directions as well as a detailed analysis of climate change resilience.

The decision on the final design is expected at the end of May 2023, followed by detailed construction drawings to be prepared until the end of July 2023. After the authority approvals, expected in August 2023, the construction of the Demo Site in At-Bashy is planned to be started in September 2023.

Authors: Bertalan Alapfy, Klaus Jorde