Economic evaluation of the removal of hydropower dams

Abstract

Stricter environmental regulations (e.g. the EU’s Water Framework Directive) will entail many environmental improvement measures in waters that have been affected by hydropower, and dam removals are becoming a more common measure. This paper reviews economic evaluations of dam removals, primarily drawing on studies in the USA, and identifies key, frequently recurring, issues that future evaluations will likely need to consider. The paper also reports on an ex-ante evaluation of the recent removal of the Marieberg Hydropower Plant in the Mörrum River in Sweden. An environmental valuation survey carried out as a key part of this evaluation was conducted as a replication of a previous study, where the policy context was different but the expected ecological outcome similar. The replication study produced comparable results to those of the previous study.

Keywords

• Hydropower
• Dam removal
• Cost–benefit analysis
• Economic evaluation
• Environmental improvement
• Sweden