Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment protocols are in place to evaluate the cumulative impact of new hydroelectric installations on water flow, flood risk, and ecological balance.

Any building or structure in the floodplain must ensure that it is resilient to flooding and that it does not increase flood risk for anybody else in the floodplain. Hydroelectric power is governed by a strict regulatory framework managed primarily by the Environment Agency (EA) that ensures that hydroelectric installations are safe and that they do not increase flood risk. The core requirements for any new hydropower installation are:

• Environmental Permits: You must apply for an environmental permit for flood risk activities to build structures in, over, or near a main river.
• Impounding Licences: building or modifying a dam or weir to hold back water requires an impounding licence to ensure that the structure does not negatively impact water levels or downstream safety. While the other two requirements apply to all infrastructure near a river that can impact flood risk, this is specific to hydropower installations.
• Mandatory Flood Risk Assessments (FRA): Planning applications for hydropower schemes must include a site-specific Flood Risk Assessment which demonstrate that the installation doesn’t increase flood risk elsewhere and that it is resilient to climate change, using specific climate change allowances for peak river flows.

The EA uses flood modelling to understand the risk of flooding at a local and a national level. Its flood models use a range of information to help make them as reliable as possible, including information about the different types of land use and structures which could influence the way water flows.

In line with Government planning policy, the EA provides advice on planning submissions for new hydroelectric installations, considering impacts on water flow, flood risk and ecological balance. This ensures that planning proposals do not result in unacceptable flood risk or environmental harm.