Initial report: HYDRO 2024, Graz, unites the global hydro community
More than 1200 delegates representing about 72 nations assembled in Graz, Austria, in November, for HYDRO 2024, to contribute to the mission of advancing global hydropower. They reviewed today’s challenges and the expertise and emerging technologies ready to address them. A major international manufacturing company described the event as a “pivotal gathering for the future of hydropower”, and an “invaluable platform for exploring the industry’s future”.
The two technical topics attracting the greatest number of presentations, and therefore warranting three sessions each, were pumped storage and artificial intelligence. This was not surprising, in view of the more than 400 pumped-storage schemes now planned across the world, and the innovative approaches being adopted for their implementation. AI, now spanning all aspects and stages of dam and hydro plant planning, design, construction and operation, was explored in depth, with sessions encompassing a broad diversity of topics and approaches.
Keynotes, paper presentations and round tables addressed finance and legal issues, with input from the World Bank, European Investment Bank, IFC, IPS Kenya, Crossboundary, Dentons and Mayer Brown.
Climate, dam and powerplant safety, and disaster risk management were, as always, high on the agenda, and talks were all the more poignant in view of some recent dam and tunnel failures under study, and practical lessons which could be learnt. There was a special presentation on a recent analysis, by ICOLD, UNESCO and the World Bank, of the failure of the Wadi Derna dams in Libya, and a keynote on managing the risks for hydropower plants in glacierized high mountain environments, as well as many talks on innovative safety monitoring systems. Delegates were reminded that in today’s turbulent world, there was a need to make water infrastructure more resilient not only to the vagaries of climate, but also to man-made risks in zones of conflict.
The conference benefited from the presence of experts from ICOLD, IEA, the major IFIs, and leaders in various EU-supported initiatives focusing on, and promoting, hydropower, as well as decision-makers from many developing countries, with potential and plans for hydro and pumped storage. Environmental issues were well covered, especially some imaginative approaches to fish protection, and the newly emerging topic of sustainable dams, looking, for example, at the whole lifecycle of a concrete dam, as well as GHG emissions during construction.
The exhibition provided an opportunity for those from nations at various stages of hydro development to meet representatives of nearly 200 consulting companies and manufacturers.
