Expertise
"The water and hydropower sectors have changed dramatically since our origins on the iconic Snowy Mountains Hydro Scheme 70 years ago in 1949, one of the largest and most complex hydroelectric schemes in the world. While technology has advanced rapidly, water is and will continue to be an essential and ever scarcer global resource."

It is both an exciting and daunting time for our industry as new innovations and technologies advance and transforms how we operate. While we celebrate our 70 years of success it is also an opportune time to look to and imagine our future, to the ways in which our markets will shift and change, and how we will adapt and grow over the next 70 years.

 

SMEC has invested in a team of leaders who are looking ahead at emerging trends and new methodologies, and studying what we can apply to benefit our clients. It’s important to have a team of experts who champion change that generates value. And whilst none of us has a crystal ball that will reveal exactly what the next 70 years will look like, here are a few predictions from me.

 

“While we celebrate our 70 years of successes, it is also an opportune time to look to and imagine our future.”

Author

SMEC

Location

Australia

Physical or chemical solutions

The future effects of climate change on water resources in the world will depend on trends in both climatic and non-climatic factors.  Evaluating these impacts is challenging because water availability, quality and stream flow are sensitive to changes in temperature, precipitation and evaporation. While changes in temperature and precipitation will depend on multi-discipline global actions, from the dam industry side I expect that physical or chemical solutions will be found to prevent evaporation of large area reservoirs, making future large-scale projects more attractive.

Hybrid wind and hydropower

One of the biggest challenges wind farms face today is how to generate power when there’s no wind. I believe that the existing concept of hybrid wind and hydropower will be widely implemented over the next 70 years. Wind power is used to pump water into pumped storage reservoirs, from where water is released to generate electricity.  To function, the wind-hydro plant must be located on a hill. Water will flow down the hill to generate hydroelectricity, and it will be pumped back up the hill when energy is not needed. This enables the wind-hydro plant to continually produce power.

Decommissioning of dams due to fish migration

Dams may impact fish populations. Migrations and other fish movements may be stopped or delayed, and the quality, quantity and accessibility of their habitat, which plays an important role in population sustainability, could be affected too. Whist dam decommissioning in might not be a trend in Australia, in many other developed countries there could be more appetite for it triggered by environmental factors such as fish migration, particularly in areas where water supply and energy can be replaced with desalination plants and other renewable energy sources.

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