The third D-HYDROFLEX webinar, “Adaptation & Resilience Technology – Environmental Aspects”, took place on Wednesday, 17 December 2025, bringing together experts to explore how innovative technologies and data-driven strategies can enhance environmental resilience in hydropower systems.
The session opened with Eric de Oliveira (EDF), who addressed sustainability practices with a strong focus on fish protection and migration. Hydropower facilities can fragment river continuity and directly or indirectly affect migratory species, such as the European eel, whose population has dramatically declined since the 1980s. Eric highlighted the importance of detecting and predicting migration periods and presented monitoring solutions like the Eel Counter Tool and RecoFish, which uses fish swimming behaviour and computer vision to identify large species, addressing the challenges of analysing low-quality acoustic videos.
Next, Manuel Touron (TASGA Renovables) presented a comprehensive environmental indicators monitoring programme at the 12.8 MW Touro Hydropower Plant on the River Ulla (Spain), including its hybridisation with a green hydrogen (H₂) facility. Continuous upstream and downstream monitoring of turbidity, pH, temperature, dissolved oxygen, solids and biological activity demonstrates that the water is generally suitable for green H₂ production, with occasional treatment needed for pH and turbidity. The analysis shows that future H₂ operations will use only a negligible fraction of river flow, making environmental impacts under normal operation highly unlikely.
The final presentation was delivered by Dr. Line Sundt-Hansen from NINA, invited as a guest speaker representing the sister project ReHydro. She outlined how European hydropower can be refurbished to meet future energy system needs while respecting sustainability, biodiversity, and societal requirements. The project focuses among others on safe downstream passage of eels, environmental flows, habitat modelling, geomorphology and sediment connectivity under different turbine operating conditions.
The webinar concluded with an Q&A session, discussing topics such as the evolution from computer vision to machine learning for fish monitoring, the importance of biodiversity for regulatory compliance and social acceptance, and regulatory and economic barriers to integrating environmental measures in refurbishment projects.
💡 Key Takeaways 💡
- Environmental monitoring and digital tools are essential for resilient and sustainable hydropower.
- Fish protection and migration solutions are critical to biodiversity preservation.
- Data-driven management supports the safe integration of new technologies such as green hydrogen.
- From a Norwegian perspective, the main barriers to integrating environmental and biodiversity measures in refurbishment projects are regulatory and political requirements, as well as economic constraints. While strong scientific knowledge already exists, the challenge lies in ensuring that research outcomes are effectively translated into policy and implementation.
Stay tuned for more insights in the upcoming D-HYDROFLEX webinars as we continue to explore the digital future of sustainable hydropower.
If you missed this session, you can watch the recording here and check the presentations for more details.
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