Preface

“Lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets”,which is the historical orientation of the current hydropower resources development in China.Thanks to the mature technology,small hydropower is a renewable energy resource with smaller impact on ecological environment as compared with other energy resources.It is a green exploitation and utilization of water resources.

Zhejiang is a province rich in rural hydropower,owning over 3,200 hydro plants.In all,8 million kW hydropower resources have been developed,of which small hydropower resources took up about a half.A large number of practices over the past several decades show that the development of hydropower resources in different stages has been influenced by the characteristics of the times and different technical factors contributive to resources allocation.With research and exploration made on engineering technology,policy orientation,investment patterns,interest coordinating and feed-in tariff,Zhejiang has accumulated plenty of useful experience in developing hydropower resources.It has explored paid use approach to hydropower resources development,aiming at the optimal allocation and combining with the modern market-oriented allocation mode based on incentive compatibility institutional arrangements.By constructing the property right system of hydropower resources,clarifying the ownership relationship,and analyzing the existing externalities to seek for ways of internalizing them in the process of development,the book studies the influence of hydropower resource development on river basin ecosystem and explores the method of ecosystem evaluation.It also studies the ecological compensation technology,as Zhejiang takes the lead in proposing and implementing three compensation mechanisms resource compensation,economic compensation and ecological compensation,which is not only affirmed by the Ministry of Water Resources but also finds widespread use across the country.The efficiency target of hydropower resources allocation under the sustainable development goal is also proposed to establish a compensation technical framework for hydropower resources development at micro,meso,macro and super macro levels.All these fully show that Zhejiang has taken a road combining both theoretical research and practical exploration in the development of hydropower resources.

In the process of developing and exploiting hydropower resources in Zhejiang,such advanced concepts as green hydropower,harmonious hydropower and ecological hydropower were created;some advantages in terms of policies,culture,technology,human resources and facilities were formed.In particular,the proposed sustainable development,with resource,economic and ecological compensations,became the intrinsic element of the“Zhejiang Mode”.Promoted by the Ministry of Water Resources,the Mode has moved towards the whole country since the beginning of the century.It has gradually turned into a national mode as more and more investors of Zhejiang invest in hydropower development out of the province.

In recent years,the“Zhejiang Mode”of optimal hydropower resources allocation has provided a national policy testing ground for the development of hydropower resources in China.The concepts of sustainable development and integrated green hydropower technology that the Mode represents,moreover,provide a template for the international cooperation in this aspect and the Belt and Road countries to develop hydropower resources.Zhejiang,as a pilot province,has implemented the China Renewable Energy Scale-up Program financed by the World Bank and the rehabilitation and upgrading project subsidized by the Global Environment Fund.It also participates in the international small hydropower cooperation by promoting the hydropower development mode via Today’s Hydropower Forum and the Forum on South-South Cooperation.

The author of this book,Professor Ye Zhou,now the president of Zhejiang University of Water Resources and Electric Power,has been engaged in the research and management of hydropower resources and rural hydropower for a long time.So far,he has published more than 40 papers on hydropower resources development.His experience as director of Zhejiang Provincial Hydropower Development Center from 1999 to 2006 gave him a lot of opportunities to directly get involved in the practices of hydropower resources development,which results in a very distinct feature of the book:profound theoretic research supported with abundant case studies.The publication of the book will certainly contribute to international cooperation in hydropower resources development and rural hydropower industry in developing countries and help to promote the implementation of the B&R Initiative in the development of hydropower resources.

Director,International Center on Small Hydro Power