Norway’s energy company, Statkraft, has announced its decision to cancel plans for the construction of a hydropower plant worth USD 1.5 billion in Nepal (€1.38bn).

The Oslo-based company said on Tuesday that it made the decision due to bureaucratic hurdles and political instability in the troubled Himalayan nation.

Tamakoshi III was planned to be constructed in the Dolakha district, about 100km northeast of Kathmandu and close to the border with Tibet. If developed, the hydro project would have supplied power to India in order to support its rising power demands.

The energy firm, however, is still interested in other projects in Nepal provided attractive investment returns and stable long-term conditions for operations are available in the country.

Statkraft senior vice-president Tima Utne Iyer said:

“As majority owner of Himal Power (HPL), Statkraft has a long-term commitment to Nepal as the license agreement for the 60MW Khimti hydropower plant runs until 2045.”

Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly has just announced a proposed €650 million hydro-electric plant which will seek to create 400 construction jobs and 50 permanent jobs on a disused mining site in Silvermines North Tipperary.

The hydro electric power station project will be the second of its kind in the Republic, along with the ESB’sTurlough Hill (292MW) facility, and Ireland’s most efficient electricity generation plant with its 360 megawatts. It is also one of the largest ever private infrastructure spends in the county.

The plant is being developed by Irish company Siga Hydro, Irish construction company Roadbridge, Austrian construction and technology companies Strabag Group and Andritz Hydro, from the existing disused open-cast mining site where operations ceased in 1993. It will be capable of supplying 200,000 homes with power :

“The overall value of benefits flowing into the national economy will exceed €2.5 Billion,” said Kelly at the launch event in Nenagh, before adding the project would “transform the mining legacy here from an environmentally hazardous to a positive one”.

The Silvermines Hydro Electric Power Station will generate electricity during high demand periods as water from a higher elevation reservoir is released to a lower reservoir, flowing through giant turbines in the process. It is then pumped back up to the higher reservoir during low electricity demand periods.

The project begins with a detailed feasibility assessment and consultation programme with the local community, before moving to an 18 month to two year planning process later this year.

The project has an estimated value of around $12bn (€11.1bn) and represents the first phase development under the Grand Inga project, which has been planned as a hydropower complex across the Congo river, and which will be the world’s largest once developed.

Construction is likely to be carried out in six phases, with the final phase expected to be completed in 2022, Congo Prime Minister Matata Ponyo saying that “the project is in an advanced state”.

According to the World Bank estimates, the dam is expected to have a capacity to produce 50GW of renewable energy with investments totalling around $80bn (€74bn).

The country initially expected to start construction works for the project in October but got delayed due to selection process hold-ups.

Lenders for the project include the World Bank, European Investment Bank, and African Development Bank, which had approved around $73m in March 2014 (€67m) for carrying out the environmental feasibility and social impact studies.

The African country has shortlisted three consortiums for the project, of which one will end up with the development contract.

While one consortium represents Chinese partnership between Sinohydro and China Three Gorges, the second was formed by Spanish firms Actividades de Construccion y Servicio and Eurofinsa. The third shortlisted group includes Posco and Daewoo from South Korea, along with Canadian SNC-Lavalin Group.

Snowdonia Pumped Hydro has submitted an application to the Planning Inspectorate to build the 99.9MW Glyn Rhonwy pumped hydro storage facility at near Llanberis.

The application, first reported in subscriber-only newsletter renews, is for a Development Consent Order.

The £160m scheme (€228m), which already has planning permission from local authority Gwynedd Council at an output of 49.9MW, would re-purpose two abandoned slate quarries.

It is the first of a series of schemes that SPH parent company QBC intends to develop throughout the UK.

SPH plans to double the output of the Glyn Rhonwy facility by increasing the capacity of the underground turbines and associated equipment. In every other respect the revised scheme would be identical to that already granted planning permission by Gwynedd Council.

The company said the higher output would enable the Glyn Rhonwy facility to play a larger role in smoothing out the intermittency of renewables such as wind by capturing surplus electricity and releasing it when demand is high and renewables output is low.

Glyn Rhonwy facility would be expected to have an operational life of around 125 years and support up to 30 full time local jobs.

Italian energy company Enel’s subsidiary Enel Produzione, has signed a deal to sell its entire 49% stake in Hydro Dolomiti Enel to Fedaia Holdings for €335m.

Fedaia Holdings is a subsidiary of Macquarie European Infrastructure Fund 4, managed by Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets.

HDE operates hydropower plants, mainly located in the Province of Trento, Italy, with a total installed capacity of about 1,280 MW. More specifically, the assets comprise 26 large hydro power plants, for a total of 1,277.3 MW, and 2 small hydro power plants, totalling 2.4 MW.

HDE generated 4.2 TWh of electricity in 2014, and the same year the company reported EBITDA of 247 million euros.

However, the closing of the sale is conditional on Dolomiti Energia S.p.A. (which holds the remaining 51% of HDE), waiving or not exercising its right of pre-emption and on the buyer receiving clearance from the EU antitrust authority.

The transaction will enable the Enel Group to reduce its consolidated net financial debt by an amount equal to, approximately, the total consideration noted above.

Following the deal, Dolomiti Energia will continue to own the remaining stake.

The sale is part of Enel Group’s plan to sell minority stakes companies and invest in other growth opportunities outlined by the company last March.

Aquila Capital has won the bid to buy Norwegian hydropower company Smakraft which has a portfolio of 45 operating plants generating more than 500GWh. The value of the deal was not disclosed.

This is the third hydro acquisition in 18 months for German-based Aquila and adds to its presence in the hydropower sector. Aquila already owns Norsk Grønnkraft and has stakes of 36% in Tinfos and 33% in Jørpeland Kraft.

Aquila Capital, part of the Aquila Group, which has 8 billion euros in assets under management, said the acquisition will make it the largest operator of small-scale hydropower plants in Europe.

Statkraft chairman Haakon Alfstad commented :

“Aquila Capital’s acquisition of Småkraft as will ensure the continued growth of small scale hydro production in Norway. We expect the transaction to be completed by the end of the year.”

The EU accounted for only 5.8% of the world’s energy production in 2013, compared to China with 19.2% and the US with 13.8%, according to the EU’s latest statistical energy pocketbook. Meanwhile, the EU consumed 12% of the world’s total energy, China accounted for 22.4% of energy consumption and the US 16.1%.

The latest statistics reveal that, in 2013, Ireland, Cyprus, Luxembourg and Malta were the most fuel import dependent EU countries with over 80% of their energy imported. Denmark, Estonia and Romania were the least import dependent with less than 20% of their energy imported.

Other figures show that in 2013 the EU imported 39% of its natural gas from Russia, 29.5% from Norway and 12.8% from Algeria. For crude oil, 33.5% came from Russia, 11.7% from Norway, 8.6% from Saudi Arabia and 8.1% from Nigeria. Overall in 2013, the EU’s import dependency for all energy products was at 53.2%, rising to 65.3% for natural gas alone and 64.6% for hard coal.

In 2013, the renewable energy share in gross final energy consumption reached 15% for the whole of the EU, and the primary energy intensity – a measure of energy efficiency calculated as units of energy per unit of GDP in 2010 – decreased by about 15.6% from 2005 levels.

The 2015 statistical pocketbook covers a whole range of energy statistical data and indicators including energy intensity, carbon intensity, renewable energy shares, energy efficiency, employment and EU country profiles.

Renewables outstripped coal as a source of electricity in the UK during a full quarter for the first time ever, government data published Thursday shows.

According to the report, a combination of higher wind speeds, more installed solar panels and a 19.5% increase in rainfall — which resulted in record output at hydroelectric power stations — all contributed to renewables accounting for over 25% of generation in the second quarter of 2015.

Gas-fired power stations provided the most electricity – 30% – with renewables second. Nuclear power was third with 21.5%, while coal fell back to fourth, with 20.5%.

According to industry body Renewable UK’s chief executive, Maria McCaffery, new technologies such as solar and wind power have now become Britain’s second largest source of electricity, generating more than a quarter of the nation’s needs.

“The new statistics show that Britain is relying increasingly on dependable renewable sources to keep the country powered up, with onshore and offshore wind playing the leading roles in our clean energy mix,” she noted in an e-mailed statement.

Howether, on a global scale, coal is expected to overtake oil consumption from 2017, according to a report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) released in 2012.

German utility firm E.on has agreed to sell its Italian hydroelectric assets with a generation capacity of 527MW to ERG Power Generation for €950m.

ERG Power Generation is a subsidiary under ERG group and, following the deal, it will own the Terni Hydroelectric Complex, which extends across Regions of Umbria, Lazio and Marche.

The divested assets comprise 16 hydro power plants, one pumping station, seven large dams and three reservoirs (Salto, Turano and Corbara), 22 weirs and 155km of channels and tunnels.

The complex utilises waters from the Nera, Velino and Tiber rivers and their tributaries, for hydro power generation.

Terni Hydroelectric Complex has a capacity to generate nearly 1.4 terawatt-hours (TWh) of power every year, with around 40% of it being entitled to concessions under the Green Certificate incentive system.

Concessions related to the assets are set to expire in 2029.

E.on expects to close the transaction by the end of this year following approvals from the Italian Antitrust Authority and relevant trade unions.

ERG CEO Luca Bettonte said: “This acquisition is of paramount importance for the group, since it offers the opportunity to diversify our production sources by entering the hydroelectric sector with notable dimensions, and is in keeping with our growth strategy in renewables via investments in high-quality assets.

“The acquisition will enable a significant improvement in our economic results and cash generation in the medium-term, while the ensuing substantial increase in electricity output is expected to generate important results, also in terms of energy management.”

State-owned landowner in the UK, The Crown Estate, has signed a land lease agreement with hydro project developer Snowdonia Pumped Hydro (SPH) for construction of Glyn Rhonwy facility near Llanberis.

The lease has allotted 13ha land for the £160m power project development, which is expected to be commissioned by 2019.

The facility will be built with pumped hydro technology. It likely to have a generation capacity of approximately 100MW.

The Crown Estate portfolio manager for Wales Malcolm Burns said: “As an active landowner, we’re always looking for opportunities to enhance the value of our holdings, whether that’s through facilitating renewable energy or enhancing the productivity of rural land.

“We’re pleased to be enabling SPH’s plans for a pumped hydro scheme, that could deliver long-term benefits to the local community, but also contribute to a secure and sustainable energy supply for the nation as a whole.”

The facility will involve pumping water to a reservoir on the upper slope of Cefn-Du during low electricity demand, where it will be stored. In times of peak energy demand, the stored water will be released back through turbines to a lower reservoir for re-generation of hydropower.

Quarry Battery, which is the parent organisation of SPH, chairman Peter Taylor said: “By continuing to utilise unconventional sites, such as the abandoned quarry on The Crown Estate’s land, Britain can realise an additional 15GW of grid-scale storage using pumped hydro technology alone. This agreement is an important first step in Britain meeting its storage needs.”

The facility is expected to have a life-span of 125 years. It will supply 600MWh of renewable power to balance supply and demand on the UK’s electricity grid.