SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT OF SMALL HYDROPOWER PLANTS

Abstract

The paper presents a set of criteria for assessing the sustainability of Small Hydropower Plants in Bosnia and Herzegovina developed on the basis of the catalogue of criteria for the use of hydropower in the Austrian province of Tyrol as well as the application of the criteria in a case study. Bearing in mind that the criteria used in the Tyrolean catalogue refer to all types of hydropower plants without capacity limitations, and the catalogue for SHP applies to plants with a capacity of less than 10 MW, it was necessary to choose a methodology for adapting the Tyrolean catalogue. The SHP catalogue includes five interdisciplinary areas, as well as the Tyrolean catalogue, namely: Energy, Water Management, Spatial Planning, Water Ecology, Nature Protection. The evaluation of the project by all criteria is done on the basis of a point scale from 0 to 5, and weighting factors are taken into account for the final evaluation by area. Ultimately, the values obtained according to the criteria are classified into ranges of values marked with red, yellow and green colours. Criteria whose values fall into the red range are not acceptable, while the yellow colour suggests the possibility of improving the project.