Micro Hydro Association

I have heard from the Environment Agency (EA) that they plan a further limited consultation on flow standards before finalising the consultation process on the Hydropower Good Practice Guidelines (GPG) on which work started 15 months ago.

As a result of the delay in revising the guidelines, the EA has decided that only the present GPG1 low head guidance (link currently here) will apply until further notice.  More details and advice on licensing of high head schemes are on the Blog page.

The EA have also said that they will provide access to all the documents currently being used by EA staff for permitting hydropower so as to avoid confusion when applications for licences are being prepared and discussed.  

The position regarding “high head” schemes remains unclear in the mean time.  The EA advise that early contact should be made to their local staff as part of the pre application process. They will use their local knowledge and expertise to advise on local environmental requirements.  In the absence of EA guidelines for high head schemes, the publicly available guidelines provided by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) may provide a useful starting point for discussions.  While there has been no decision by the EA to adopt these standards, they have been considered during the consultation process as candidates for use for schemes in England and Wales.  For this purpose I would suggest that “high head” schemes are taken to be those involving diversion of water into a penstock with a net head of 10m or more.

The SEPA guidelines are available at this link: http://www.sepa.org.uk/water/idoc.ashx?docid=eb64480b-e4d8-434a-82fe-f8a6490d6676&version=-1.  In particular they contain checklists in “Annex A to Part A” (page 5) to assess provisionally acceptable schemes and to indicate standards where SEPA believe there is some risk. 

The proposals covered by this Scottish Government Consultation on Proposals for an Integrated Framework of Environmental Regulation have the potential to improve regulation of micro hydro schemes in Scotland.  Given current delays in reforming regulation for England and Wales, this may also in due course have an impact on the Environment Agency's procedures.

Follow these links for the consultation proposals and the response form.

I shall post a draft mha response on this page and invite comments from members before final submission.

Please send your response with the completed Respondent Information Form . . . . to: EQCAT@scotland.gsi.gov.uk

or

Environmental Quality Division

Scottish Government

Area 1-H

Victoria Quay

Edinburgh

EH6 6QQ

Responses may also be faxed to 0131 244 0211.

We would be grateful if you could clearly indicate in your response which questions or parts of the consultation paper you are responding to as this will aid our analysis