Dear reader,

we hope that you, your families and friends are all safe and in good health, and had a good start into 2023. Times remain being challenging for many people around the world who were faced after the Covid-19 pandemic directly with the consequences of the Russian war against Ukraine. Rising prizes in many parts of the world, and even famine risks due to this unneeded war shall be stopped immediately.

Within HYPOSO, we work on two major objectives, to stimulate the energy transition in developing and emerging countries (together with our partners in Bolivia, Colombia, and Ecuador in Latin America, and in Cameroon and Uganda in Africa), and to support of the European hydropower industry. Therefore, different tools were and will be developed.

The HYPOSO project has reached now the final stage, and there will be some really interesting occasions for the hydropower sector, from Africa to Latin America, and of course to Europe.

In this newsletter, updates will be given about the HYPOSO activities in Bolivia, Colombia, and in Ecuador. We start with the expert site visits in all the three countries, and inform about the capacity building courses in Bolivia and Ecuador. Also, you will read about Workshops on the Framework Conditions for SHP in Bolivia and Ecuador. In an outlook, the final events in Latin America, and the B2B-Matchmaking Event in Salzburg will be mentioned. You will be remembered why it is still a good decision to register for the HYPOSO Platform. Finally, a project idea will be presented, how Latin American hydro professionals could be trained on SHP on the South American continent, in a Training Center for SHP.

For more information about HYPOSO, please refer to our website, follow our twitter account (@HyposoEU), join the HYPOSO LinkedIn group for discussions, and subscribe to HYPOSO's newsletter. We would appreciate it, if you forward our newsletter to colleagues and other interested persons.

On behalf of the HYPOSO team

Ingo Ball
HYPOSO Coordinator

From July to August 2022, hydropower experts from the HYPOSO project partners Frosio Next (Italy) and IMP PAN (Poland) visited altogether nine different potential hydropower sites in Bolivia, Ecuador, and in Colombia, three in each of the visited countries.  In each of the countries, they were supported by the local HYPOSO project partners, namely by UMSS (Bolivia), EPN (Ecuador), and CELAPEH (Colombia). During their visits, the HYPOSO experts assessed the available information about the sites at the original places, checked for instance locations for intake, conduction, and powerhouse, and gathered information as well to be considered for the environmental and social impact assessment.

In parallel of the site visits, in Bolivia and Ecuador, also Capacity Building Courses were carried out. From 4 to 10 July 2022, the first week of the HYPOSO Capacity Building Courses (CBC) in Latin America was held in the premises of Universidad Mayor de San Simón in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

The week in Bolivia was organized over 7 days and included 5 days of lectures and 2 days of site visits to make use of what participants have learnt in the course. The lectures were given by altogether six different lecturers.

The second week of the Latin American Capacity Building Courses took place from 8 to 15 August 2022 in Quito, Ecuador. They were held in the facilities of Escuela Politécnica Nacional University, in Auditorium of the EARME – CEC building.

The courses were given by experts from the sector, namely from the Italian company Frosio Next (Nino Frosio and Bernhard Pelikan), IHE Delft (Shreedhar Maskey and Miroslav Marence), and from the Polish academy IMP PAN (Janusz Steller and Waldek Janicki).

During summer 2022, as well Workshops on the Framework Conditions (WFC) for Small Hydropower were conducted. The first HYPOSO WFC in Latin America was organized by the Bolivian HYPOSO project partners from Universidad Mayor de San Simón (UMSS), together with Ewa Malicka (TRMEW, Poland), who besides being the HYPOSO project partner responsible for these workshops is also President of the Polish Small Hydropower Association.

On 22 July 2022, the WFC for Bolivia was held as live event at UMSS in Cochabamba. The event was also broadcasted via internet so that more stakeholders could participate and have their say. Altogether, 55 (19 on-site) participants contributed to the workshop.

On 26 July 2022, the third of the HYPOSO WFC was held in Quito, Ecuador, at the Hemicycle of Escuela Politecnica Nacional (EPN). It was organised by the project partners TRMEW (Poland) and EPN (Ecuador) and could welcome 47 participants on site. Besides the findings of the site visits by the HYPOSO experts, contributions were provided by  CBS Ingeniería and EPMAPS – Quito.

The last WFC for Latin America will be held on 28 February 2023 in Medellín, Colombia.

On the day of this newsletter, it was the deadline for European hydropower companies to register for the first HYPOSO B2B Matchmaking Event, this time for the potential sites which were assesses by the HYPOSO experts during July and August 2022. The second B2B-Matchmaking Event for six African sites will take place on 30 March 2023 in Salzburg, Austria, in the framework of Renexpo Interhydro. Registrations can be made via the organiser of Renexpo Interhydro or directly via the HYPOSO Platform after registering for it.

Besides being active in the HYPOSO project, the HYPOSO partner from Colombia, CELAPEH, has been working on the development and operation of a Latin American Training Center (TC) specifically for SHP. The CELAPEH TC concept is based on construction and operation of a micro power station with at least three generation units, each with a different turbine type (Pelton, Francis, Cross-Flow) which are the most frequently used types in Latin America. With this approach, CELAPEH´s TC shall be able to provide practical, on the job training, to almost every SHP owner for his specific SHP equipment.

Other planned technical features include:

a)    Generating units will be scheduled to operate 8 hours/day, in such a way that at least one unit will be operating while the remaining units are out of service for training purposes, to ensure energy availability for TC consumption.

b)    A forebay, or pressure tank will be designed to store enough water to allow power generation for 1 day (at full load), or up to 3 days (only 1 generating unit) without water intake from the river. This feature allows to carry out practical research and testing activities related to energy storage optimization for SHP stations

c)    Instead of intake works (weir, intake gate and conduction channels or pipes) a portable, photovoltaic driven, pumping facility is foreseen, to pump water from the river to desander, located about 2 meters above river level. This feature will be a case study for research purposes about hybrid power schemas combining hydro and photovoltaic power. The mix hydro/photovoltaic can be further researched through installation of floating panels at forebay tank

European hydropower companies who want to learn more about this concept can contact HYPOSO to further discuss this issue.