OK, good morning. Uh, distinguished speakers, colleagues, Ladies and gentlemen, a, a very warm. Good morning to you from Washington DC. My name is Pravin Khary, and I'm the global lead for hydropower and dams at the World Bank. On behalf of the World Bank's Hydropower and Dams Global Solutions Group and the ESMAP Hydropower Development Facility, I would like to warmly welcome you to our virtual hydropower conference. This is a 2-day event which will feature 4 sessions. We will examine international developments and trends, research and innovation, sustainability, climate change, and safety. The final session will be on investment and finance. Our panelists bring a wide variety of experience, expertise, and leadership in the Hyderad sector, and I'm hopeful this event will provide ample opportunities for debate, discussion, and exchange. Based on the findings and conclusion from our discussion, we hope to be able to identify many areas of possible collaboration to help build back better and greener. Interest in this event has been high since it was first announced. It is currently being streamed live on YouTube. Finally, as you may have noticed from the program, Most of the sessions of the forum are organized as panel discussions facilitated by a moderator. In this first session, we will be exploring the current state and trends of hydropower development around the world, and I'm pleased to be moderating it. I'm truly looking forward to the discussions. And we will inaugurate them with a few words from Makhtar Diop, the World Bank's vice president for infrastructure. Thank you for your kind attention. Hello. We are all committed in reaching the SDG 7 of universal access to electricity. For that, we will need to produce a lot of electricity. But as we go, we would like to make sure that we do it in a way which is not polluting, in a way which allows us to reduce emissions. We know that it's possible to do that. You can do it by using the usual Potential that we have with IO in a lot of countries. But hydro projects are usually complex because we want to do them well. We want to make sure that we are doing them, taking into account the environment, the social implications, and that together. Is something that we can do in a lot of developing countries. For that very reason, we have established the hydro development facility, which will help us to scale up sustainable hydropower. I would like Specifically, to thank Austria, Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland for their early support. I'm pleased to tell you that now in the global practice of energy, we have a global solution on hydropower. And we would like to thank ESMAP for putting in place this facility, which is a hydropower facility, and that will help convening events like this one, but also to do much more to help the production of more hydroelectricity, which is key to reaching out. Thank you so very much and I wish you an excellent meeting. Unfortunately, I'm not able to join you, but I'm sure that we have many opportunities to talk again about it. Thank you once again for joining us. Yes. OK, so the next speaker for this first session. Is the Honorable Minister Barhaman Kon. Uh, can I ask, uh, everyone to mute, please, if you're not speaking. Thank you. Uh, Mr. Putin is the Minister of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation in Nepal. He was appointed as Energy Minister in March 2018 and was also finance minister from August 2011 to March 2013. In his tenure. Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation issued a white paper in May 2018 which summarizes the current performance and outlines the future roadmap in energy, water resources, and irrigation sector and an energy sector action plan to support the implementation of the white paper. Mr. Putin is affiliated with the Nepal Communist Party. Over to you, Honorable Minister. Thank you. Uh, thank you, Pravindi. Excellencies, dignitaries, online viewers and listeners. I would like to express my sincerest thanks to the World Bank Group and ESAMAP for inviting me as a guest speaker on this webinar with a central theme of building back better and greener with sustainable hydropower. I appreciate the effort in organizing this webinar during the time of this global pandemic and feel honored to express my views. The world is currently reeling under a pandemic because of which most of the global economic activities are not, are on the back seat, and hydropower development is not an exception, uh, exception to it. Owing to the current situation, Nepal's focus is still is to uplift the country's economic development through major contributions. From the development of sustainable hydropower projects. Excellencies, out of our total techno-economically viable hydro potential of around 43 gigawatts, we have developed about 1,274 megawatts and are continuously committed to increase this number by a significant amount in coming years. The efficient transmission and distribution of the generated energy will be our prime focus for the clean, uninterrupted, and reliable energy. We have already. Accelerated the pace of hydropower deployment not only to meet our own demand but also to complement electricity needs at bilateral, subregional and regional levels. We were working to 1000 megawatts of hydrogenation. Capacity in this fiscal year alone in our national power system. But, but due to the global pandemic, we have been able to augment only around 200 megawatts to the system. We are very optimistic to arrive at the 3 gigawatt mark install capacity of our system next fiscal year, with additional generation capacity of 1500 megawatts. Our principal targets, plans, and future roadmaps have been outlined in the white paper on energy, water resources, and irrigation sector, which was released in May 2018, which I strong belief that the multi-purposed use of our water resources through reservoir projects will have The potential to contribute not only to electricity demand of the nation, but the region as a whole, we intend to generate 15,000 megawatts of electricity, including our renewables, 2028 and set aside 5000 megawatts for the cross-border power trade. Excellencies. Despite possibilities to harvest a lot of hydro and other clean renewable resources in the region, we continue to rely largely on fossil fuels, most of which is imported. Our dependence on coal or diesel-based thermal energy is also a serious concern from the point of view of environmental degradation and global warming. The multi-proposed use of our water resources to reservoir projects will have the potential to contribute not only to the electricity demand of the countries in the region, but also neighboring countries could benefit from drinking water, irrigation, flood control, and navigation. In addition, the water reservoir-based multi-proposed projects could be one of the adaptation measures for the river. Increasing threat of climate change, which has Uh, direct bearing on the water resource availability. Ladies and gentlemen, due to our seasonally varying supply and demand pattern of the individual countries in the South Asia region, the complementarity of generating resource available in the region must to utilize to optimize our power systems and reduce the price of electricity. It is in this context, development of hydropower projects in Nepal can be considered as a battery storage facility for the system stabilization of the region. We have been moving forward in creating the necessary infrastructure to further enhance the education of the power transmission, and uh, I, I commend to the spirit of cooperation expressed. Expressed from the concerned countries, the cross-border electricity in the connection between the countries needs to be expanded to a new level which will ultimately enhance the transmission of electricity at region, regional and sub-regional level. Ladies and gentlemen, our efforts will continue in enhancing the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity through various programs and projects in the country. In recent times, we have initiated institutional and regulatory reforms in an attempt to make a departure from traditional bundled power industry to segregated business with regulatory oversight. For this Electricity Regulatory Commission Act has been enacted and just last week, the commission issued its first electricity tariff applicable in the country. The electricity bill embracing the federal and, uh, competition attributes of power sector has been submitted by the government in the parliament in order to Substitute more than 2 decades old electricity. Act likewise, with the promulgation of the Environmental Protection Act Act 2019 and its regulation 2020. A strong foundation has been set to build greener, sustainable hydropower. We believe building back better, greener and sustainable hydropower could be achieved through this reform agenda that we have adopted in the, in the North. Through these policy interventions and legal arrangements, we continuously intend to steer out our efforts in realizing, realizing the most awaited power sector reform agenda. This will ultimately help us developing more and more hydropower as a reliable source of sustainable energy. Thank you. Thank you Purvii. Thank you very much. Uh, thank you very much, Honorable Minister. Um, so we now move to, uh, the second speaker today, Mr. Benoit Revaz, State Secretary and Director of the Swiss Federal Office of Energy. Uh, Mr. uh, Revaz has been director of, uh, the, uh, Swiss Federal Office of Energy since 2016. Prior to his current position, he held various management positions in Group E, US Holding, OPEC Holding, and ECub Strategy Consultants. Over to you, Mr. Benoit Rivas. Thank you. Thank you very much, uh, excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, good morning, good afternoon or good evening. Uh, it gives me great pleasure to address this video conference on hydropower today, and, and Switzerland welcomes this initiative by the World Bank. We consider it timely and opportune because hydropower is often not given the attention it deserves. It is one of the oldest energy producing technologies and it is the largest renewable source of electricity. So the largest part of the world's untapped hydro potential lies in World Bank client countries. So hydro is often overlooked in discussions about the energy transition. And taken for granted, the risk of capacity loss because of insufficient maintenance and refurbishment is often underestimated. Hydropower has been the backbone of Switzerland's electricity system for more than a century, long before terms such as new and renewable energy appeared. And many Swiss like myself grew up with hydropower dams in their backyards or have a grandfather or father who worked on building sites during the second half of the 20th century. So we are deeply convinced of the benefits of hydropower. We want to share this conviction with others, including through the World Bank's SMAP facility. Switzerland believes that the World Bank should continue to develop and finance sustainable hydropower projects. The expertise and convening power of the World Bank are key assets in developing sustainable hydro projects. And the hydropower development facility addresses one of the main constraints of sustainable hydropower the lack of adequately prepared projects with due consideration of environmental and social impact, thorough feasibility studies studies, and robust project management. Which are necessary to attract private finance and place hydro on green bond markets. Switzerland is promoting hydropower in the other international fora too. We are actively pushing for the establishment of a hydro group within the International Renewable Energy Agency IRENA in order to buoy IRENA works on the topic. We plan also to join a forum on pump storage which is being launched by the US under the auspices of the International Hydropower Association. Hydropower has many benefits. Hydro reservoirs and even more so pumped storage offer flexible dispatchable electricity and competitive long-term storage. Hydro provides system services such as inertia, voltage control, and frequency regulation. It does supports the electricity transition as the shares of variable renewables grow and dispatchable carbon-based generation is set to diminish. It also offers non-energy services. Such as fresh water management and flood control. At the same time, we are fully aware of the challenges of hydropower. I would like to touch upon two of them, investment and sustainability. The first challenge is about investment and financing, a challenge common to all countries. Also, the specifics are different in developing and developed countries. One fundamental issue is that hydropower services are not adequately remunerated. As the share of variable renewables continues to rise, it is short-sighted to consider the cost of generation technologies in isolation. The contribution of technologies, including hydro to system resilience must be accounted for. Let me show you the interplay of variable renewables and pump storage works. This slide shows on the left hand side a windy and sunny day in Germany in March 2019, and on the right hand side a so-called dark doldrums in January 2019. Each bar shows an hour from midnight to midnight. On the top left during the windy and sunny day, almost 50,000 megawatts of variable renewables are fed into the German system. Previous slide, mid left, some of the excess generation is exported. Can you come back to the previous slide? I exported among others to Switzerland because of the great congestion in Germany. The grid operators had to limit capacity at the border on the red line. On the bottom left, it shows some imports into Switzerland are used for pumping mainly at night and midday. Is the slide still on the the second, the 2nd slide, yes, otherwise it would be pretty different than the previous one. This one? Yes. So on the bottom left, it shows us how some imports into Switzerland are used for pumping mainly at night and midday. Inverseally the top right. Hindsight shows a dark doldrums day in Germany with little wind and solar, and in the middle right you can see how trade at the German-Swiss border changes from imports to Switzerland at night to export during the day to contribute to German demand. So bottom right shows a large contribution of hydro to these exports. So this example shows how important regional electricity market integration and smart regulation is. More reform in the electricity market design is needed today. The fact is that new hydropower is hardly competitive in Europe. In deeply integrated electricity markets such as Europe, solutions must be found across borders. International integration helps harvest system efficiencies and lower the overall energy costs. This is also valid in parts of Africa, South and Southeast Asia where hydro has a cross-border dimension and feeds into regional power pools. Meantime, Switzerland must resort to financial support to incentivize new hydro capacities or upgrades, very much like investment aid for new renewables in many countries. We are aware of such type of support is hardly a feasible solution for many countries where the World Bank is active. Yet the challenge remains in many parts of the world, hydropower is impossible to realize without multilateral development finance or new types of bilateral state-backed finance, while private investment remains too scarce. The second challenge is about the environmental and social impact of hydropower. Switzerland's practice in environmental impact studies and public consultation is internationally recognized. Admittedly, our rigorous procedures lead to protracted permitting procedures or even to projects being shelved. To be fair, our hydro projects like the one shown on the next slide. Which is designed to use water from melting glaciers. are not exactly in populated areas as is the case in many developing countries. However, the same rigorous procedures apply to other energy infrastructure such as power lines, wind parks in populated areas, and where sustainable solutions must be found. Our experience has motivated us through our State Secretariat for Economic Affairs to support the IHHA's hydropower sustainability assessment Protocol and its derivatives since 2014. In addition, Switzerland provides targeted capacity development in Western Balkans, Colombia, Indonesia, Tajikistan, Central Asia, and co-financing for the hydropower, environmental, social, and governance gap assessments. Switzerland also represents the Chamber for Advanced Economy governance in the Hydropower Sustainability Governance Council. HSGC supports a process driven by IHA to develop a hydropower sustainability standard. Earlier this year, we launched the $1 million US dollars hydropower sustainability ESG Assessment Fund to help developers and operators of some 40 hydro projects, Africa, Asia, Europe, and in the Americas to benchmark and raise their social and environmental performance. This initiative is managed by IHA. During session 2 today, the Xflex hydro project will be presented. Switzerland carries out considerable energy R&D also in hydro, which is regarded as a mature technology. But which still holds potential for advances. As a rule, 1 franc or $1 of public hydro research and development is supplemented by 2 or 3 francs or dollars of private R&D, as it is the case with I Flex. So ICFlex aims at increasing the flexibility of hydropower and thus enhancing even further value of hydropower for the energy systems of the future. With this, I wish the conference much success and look forward to interesting discussions. Thank you for your attention. Thank you, Your Excellency. Uh, the next speaker, uh, is Mr. Euen Johansson, Assistant Director General, Ministry of Petroleum and Energy, Norway. So we will now put, uh, his presentation on the screen. You can share the presentation, uh, Pravin. Can you see it? Yes, you can see it very well, Pravin. OK, let me just introduce briefly, uh, Mr. Johansson held various positions in the energy and water resources department and worked with legal issues related to administration of the energy sector, licensing of electricity generating installations, power lines, and the power market. His current position is deputy director in the Climate Industry Technology Department section for Industry and International Affairs. Besides his responsibilities in the ministry, Euvin holds a range of positions in national and international organizations such as IRENA RN 21, NRWIP, and IHJ. Over to you, Ouvin. Thank you. Thank you very much for the introduction, Pravin. Uh, your Excellencies and the dear friends of hydropower. Uh, it's a great opportunity to meet during these challenging times, uh, these two days webinar, and, uh, I'm also pleased to, to recognize the work that the World Bank and SSMAP has done for the hydropower facility, and Norway has, uh, pleased to join that initiative. Uh, I'll see you next please province. Uh, yes, I'm pleased to share some experiences from Norway when it comes to the benefits of hydropower and also to briefly mention some of the international initiatives we are in. So firstly, hydropower has been the key for social and economic development of Norway since the early 1900s. Today it's the backbone of our power systems and actually energy systems in mainland Norway. We have close to 100% renewable energy share in the electricity sector. Almost all of hydropower and the total energy consumption, renewable energy is responsible for about 70%. Uh, annual production is about 140 terawatt hours a year for 5 million people, and we have about 333 gigawatts of installed capacity. And as well a lot of reservoirs which gives us flexibility. Next please Pravin. Yeah. We use electricity in many sectors, um, in households for heating and other purposes, but it's also important for the industry, uh, power-intensive industries, which are also large export industries, and we see more and more electricity coming into the especially transport sector where electrical vehicles are, uh, now. Close to 50% of the fleet in in the large areas so you see a bright future for electricity in the future as well. You see new user areas and of course hydropower is key to its, uh, future success. So next please. It was a strength of the Norwegian hydropower system is that We have several, about 1600 plants or more spread all over the country. You have high heads, a lot of precipitation. And um several water reservoirs, so. We cover about 50% of Europe's reservoir capacity when it comes to hydropower. So next please. For many decades we have had a very well integrated Nordic electricity system. It's, uh, we have been good neighbors all the time and we have also had strong interconnections both on land and On, uh, on the sea level, uh, especially between Norway and Denmark. And another part of the success is that there's a mixed, um, resource base in the Nordic countries. Norway is almost exclusively hydropower, but Sweden has a mix of hydro nuclear and uh other fossils and wind. Denmark is very strong in wind, and Finland has a mix of all this. So that's, uh, this mix makes, um, part of the success for a well functioning. Power market that's been established since the 1990s and their power is traded freely on the North Pole at market prices. Max, please. So here you see a slide that illustrates the benefits of uh differences, or as we say, the connecting what's different, which will also enable more renewable energy development. You see that Norwegian storage hydro will Provide for more wind power in Denmark, which is intermittent, and also other parts of the continent. And um, With a larger sys uh system with strong interconnection, it gives us complementary production, but it also gives us a lot of security of supply, especially during cold and dry winters or dry years. So it's also good for our countries to have this, um, backup from our neighbors when the precipitation is low, and it's also good for the overall resource, uh, utilization and for the environmental and climate footprints to have this, um. Way of trading power across national borders. So Max, please. So we see new interesting developments going on now. We will, uh, have, at the end of this year and through next year, two new interconnectors in place. There's one to the UK which is 1400 megawatts, two cables of 700-ish, and the same to Germany. The 1400 megawatts there as well. So in total, this will increase the Norwegian exchange capacity of power with about uh 50%. And as you see, um, the other take the power, where are the start of power lines from the Norwegian side is close to our biggest, uh, hydropower plants, uh, Kilda and Tunsta, which are 1,200,000 megawatts each respectively, and, uh, each have very large storage reservoirs. So I think this will, uh, help to increase, uh, value of existing hydropower assets. And it's also good for the renewable, the intermittent renewable energy sources. But of course, one interesting point for further discussion is, uh, the price intensity or the renew remuneration of peak power, as was also alluded to from, uh, Um, State Secretary Evas from Switzerland, that's Uh, you have to have price mechanisms in place who can facilitate this. So like please Uh, yes, uh. Since hydropower is a very mature technology, um, education and research is still a key topic. Um, so I'm pleased to say that we are, have a strong technical university in Trondon, which, uh, focuses, uh, A lot of hydropower in all aspects from, uh, yeah, dam constructions and the water to turbine and mechanical, uh, equipment as well as the overall environmental, uh, footprint of the hydropower sector and I also have many foreign students who are part of the master's programs and PhD programs. I'm, uh, also pleased to recognize Pravin. You have been studying in Trondheim and. have a degree from there as well. So, so this is a very good, um, way of sharing experience across, uh, countries. And the government together with the industry and academia has establishing, established a research center, HydroCen. It is one of uh several uh government-funded uh research center for um environmentally friendly energy. And Hydroen is, uh, dedicated solely to hydropower, both in, when it comes to infrastructure. Mechanical parts, but also market issues as well as environmental issues. Has about 50 partners from industry, utilities, supply industry, academia, governments, also international partners. They are looking for international collaboration. It's funded. Quite strongly over 8 years so I have a long term perspective of this, so. And encourage interested people to look up Hydroan at the web page and see if there's something of interest to them to cooperate in. Then the next, next slide. Through our hydropower companies, uh, Starcraft, which is the largest power company in Norway, it's, uh, state-owned, have a lot of activities abroad, and they're taking with them Norwegian competent way of developing hydropower and also capital and investing in both greenfield and brownfield projects, uh, in several countries, which you can see are marked in blue. Uh, that's a very good way of sharing experience from Norway to these countries, developing countries as well as As, um, uh, more advanced countries, it's also Helping us to keep the knowledge in within our own industry in a period where we have developed most of our resources. We also have another company called Les Power, which are owned by Northern, who are investing in the more, um, more developed countries. We focus on Africa and Southeast Asia, as you can see from these maps. Then the next please Pravin. Uh, we have several institutions in Norway which are cooperating internationally. I like to mention the Norwegian Energy Partners, which is a cooperation between the Norwegian government and the, uh, energy industry, both petroleum and renewable, and of course, several hydropower companies. Uh, we are promoting their capabilities in the international markets. Mm, we also established the International Center for Hydropower in Trondheim closely linked to the NTU about 25 years ago with the government, uh, hydropower companies, the supply industry that's they have a lot of training courses in, uh. Many countries who are sharing Norwegian experience and especially hydropower, but also when it comes to market integration with power, etc. I have a lot of training courses. I can also advise people to have a look at their homepage if they find something of interest for them. And also capacity building in the development corporation has been a key priority for many decades where Ministry of Foreign Affairs and NORAD, uh, funding this through the development, uh, budget, but where our Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate are a key provider of, um, Sharing Norwegian hydropower capacity, both in legislation, hydrology, etc. with the developing countries. And as I've been mentioned, we are, uh, one of the members of IRENA, and I'd like to thank this opportunity to thank State Secretary Revas and his team in Switzerland for being a key driver in this hydropower initiative, which is now going on in Irena. We look forward to the You're sure of that. We're also cooperation, cooperating through IEA and Also with ISA for a couple of decades, and Norway has been one of the key supporters of the, uh, uh, sustainability work and the hydropower sustainability assessment protocol and the follow-up of that both through funding via NORA but also via the Norwegian members of, uh, IHA. So that's the last slide. One more province. The next, yeah. Let me just say thank you for this, uh, for your attention, and I'm looking forward to some questions if there are anyone. Thank you. Mark Lambridis, uh, Mark, could you please, uh, put your presentation on the screen, uh, while you do that, I will, uh, introduce you. So, uh, Mark joined, he's the director of global energy and infrastructure at the Nature Conservancy, TNC in short. Mark joined TNC to lead the Energy and Infrastructure program. He helped develop and currently manages the Powerful Nature program. This program is an innovative program that seeks to accelerate the deployment of sustainable energy solutions while avoiding conflicts with nature and people. Prior to TNC, Mark worked at the World Bank in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and distribution of grid rehabilitation project investments. He also worked on issues related to energy policy and regulatory reform, climate change mitigation and adaptation advisory projects, as well as institutional strengthening initiatives for clients in the Caribbean, Central and South America. Over to you, Mark. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Pravin. It's an honor to join you and the fellow presenters today in this important session. Uh, as you may know, TNC is a global nonprofit organization, NGO headquartered in the US with a presence in over 70 countries around the world, and among the strategies I'm working on at TNC, I manage Power for Nature. Uh, this program is focused, as you mentioned, on accelerating the expansion of renewable energy alternatives. To meet both the energy needs and the environmental challenges that we face. Let me see how I can advance this. Hold on one second. The time is really now to start talking about how we can get this transition to a renewable energy future and fuel the economic recovery as we emerge from COVID-19 and how do we get this right through an urgent process that requires system scale planning. The opportunity that we have is really enabled by the tremendous drop in price through that's been driven by policy commitments, technological innovation, and the scaling of manufacturing that has brought down the prices for a multitude of renewable energy alternatives which have fallen dramatically over the past decade. I've used this graph from Irena, and as many of you know, we continue to see falling prices, and if we were to continue this with Technologies such as solar photovoltaic, we would see these costs being competitive with many fossil fuels today. So going forward and as the world needs to rapidly decarbonize its energy systems alongside with the dramatic expansion of solar, wind, and hydropower, this will likely be, uh, it'll be key to balance the use of these intermittent together with the grid system. At the same time we see despite these opportunities, there are certain risks associated with the integration of these systems, the potential for significant impacts on the environment, whether that is the lands, forests, deserts, or wildlife. And with hydro, renewable, and other conventional energy infrastructures, projects are often scaled on a project by project, or developed on a project by project basis, AKA cherry picking, whereas if planning is done right, it is typically motivated by long term potential. A system skill approach. Can address many of these risks. TNC and many of our partners advocate for a system scale approach to power sector planning. Seen here is a system scale schematic which summarizes an approach for planning by water resource managers, energy planners, and developers. Essential in this process is a constructive dialogue among stakeholders, including local communities, to increase the opportunity to identify projects that meet a wide range of expectations. Encouraged by the opportunity to rapidly scale up renewables, especially solar and wind, we explore explore the potential land threats to the environment that these systems may represent. This graph comes from work by my colleague Joe Kiesiger and others at TNC and other partners, and highlights a range of clean energy solutions, ranging from the least impactful, say, energy efficiency, to the most impactful, in this case, hydropower. The lower portion of this graph or this chart represents the potential land and species impact in a business as usual situation. But we recognize that this is a worst case scenario, and the great news is, as this study also highlights, is the potential to deploy renewable energy systems on already converted or degraded lands. They determined that there is 17 times the available converted and degraded lands viable for renewable energy generation to meet the Paris Agreement targets. Thankfully, this offers tremendous hope. Now we consider. The threats and opportunities associated with hydropower development. This map is the product of the Global Dam Watch, a group supported by TNC and led by many of our partners such as WWF, WRI, and others. It provides an assessment of the connectivity status of over 12 million kilometers of rivers globally, and identifies those that remain free flowing in their entire length. Only 37% of rivers longer than 1000 kilometers remain free flowing over. Their entire length dams and reservoirs cause fragmentation and flow regulation up and downstream and are leading contributors to the loss of river connectivity. Everything that comes with that, including fish migration, flooded lands, and all types of biodiversity. So tools such as this are critical for considering where to build, if at all, the next hydropower at TNC we are working to develop global and national strategies to help maintain and restore these rivers. In a systems scale approach, we bring hydro by design to consider river basin river basins at a system scale, looking for opportunities to generate similar amounts of electricity at the same or lower costs while impacting the least amount of free flowing rivers possible. This slide comes from a report we produced with the support of the Inter-American Development Bank for the Cuatzacoalcos River basin in Mexico. In a project TNC completed for the IFC in the Republic of Congo, we looked at a multitude of conflicting objectives and their interacting trade-offs simultaneously. It allows us to work with governments and local partners. To establish priorities like in this case, great ape habitats, fish migration, wetlands, investment costs and power generation. In fact, after the webinar today, I have a call with the government and partners in Gabon, where we would like to propose a matrix similar to this combining land and hydro-based tools to look at a strategic environmental assessment approach on Gabon's National Energy plan. Of course, during doing this analysis and setting up plans isn't useful if it doesn't result in low impact development. Establishing the rules of the game and incentives are essential. The public investments that flow out of flow through the economic stimuli in the next years coming out of COVID will be vitally important to catalyze a a sustainable buildout. Following information comes from a recent report we published called Gle Clean and Green Pathways for a renewable Energy build out, and it presents 6 distinct and important interconnected pathways that can lead to a cleaner and greener energy future. We've highlighted these here and note that many of the examples in this case are drawn from our experience in the United States, with the, with the exception of Pathway 6, which is green energy finance, where we note a number of international finance incentives to support a clean and green future. I'll just note on a couple of the examples that are used in this case, where states or countries are promoting such a clean and green pathway and deploying a system scale approach. In the upper left power of place is a report from the work in California. As many of you know, California recently adopted a 100% 0 carbon by 2045 commitment. And in doing so, we've worked with the state government to help outline a future that integrates solar, wind, and hydropower by working with surrounding states and meet the energy needs of California without degrading and otherwise harming wildlife and critical habitat. New York State recently adopted also adopted a 100% 0 carbon by 2040 rule and followed on just this April with legislation that establishes an office for renewable Energy siting to help accelerate the transition and ensure that the renewable energy projects land in low impact locations. In the bottom left is a map of India and symbolizes our work for India renewables in the Central Indian Highlands. We're working with two states to help outline a strategy, a roadmap for solar deployment in that region. And finally, in the bottom right is a map representing the site Wright tool, which is an initial tool that can be used to map low impact locations for the deployment of of wind technology. With that, I conclude and thank you very much for the opportunity. I look forward to working with all of you as we work to carve out a low-impact strategy and in particular, deploy the likely and upcoming economic stimuli as we come out of this challenging crisis. Thank you for the opportunity. I turn it back over to you, Pravin. Thanks, uh, thank you very much, Mark. So we have now concluded the presentations from our distinguished panelists, and, uh, uh, we have, uh, uh, currently 161 people on YouTube watching, and several of them have posted some questions. So, um, let's go through a round of questions. We have approximately 45 minutes for this. Um, uh, if you could kindly, uh, give your responses, uh, keep it under, uh, 5 minutes for each, uh, question, that would be great. OK. So there is a question for the Honorable Minister for Nepal. Um, the question is that, uh, Nepal has a very ambitious hydropower target. Uh, as the minister alluded to, uh, roughly 40,000 megawatts of, uh, technically, economically feasible, how will the government of Nepal encourage both private and public sectors, knowing that, uh, this has to be, this cannot be undertaken by a single, either private or public sector? Thanks very much. And what for binji uh kasari, uh, I mean, uh, um, click cityo Seroma teswa ksari hydro power to Seroma. Uh, I mean, the other are tight some of fun raja megawatt B would part and girl. The kiosks. Uh, thank you very much, Pravinji, uh, for the question. Uh, as you have rightly pointed out, we have a target to generate 15,000 megawatt hyperpower by the year 2018. And for uh 2028, and the, the Among that, uh, we'll be using, uh, 10,000 megawatts for the internal users, and, uh, we have set aside the 5000 megawatt per export, uh, for this ambitious, uh, uh, uh, target, uh, we have, uh, formed a very simple and a very, uh, beautiful, uh, policy to, to, to develop our hydropower projects. Uh, Hamishang Kasari lagani 100%, uh. Tesseri, uh, joint ventermapany owns this prakarunnitia tesseri aile uh Brii mudravinimaiko joki kamarnalai, uh, Ami hedging hokum mechanismibanaika. Uh, this is Ami, uh, Prasarron line bitter line for Bistarpani, uh, Ami uh jord decason yesseri Ami you know cascario storage project P R O R R O R website uh solar lagait on the renewable gola alagala uh hari mule, uh kharidar near aungarriksson tesle time. Uh, Amili chatterlai pani laganikolay got rahea song, uh, you, uh, uh, Ami, uh, I karma that's for the dust for some of plates argoversal like but that's for the shirt food. Ahami, uh, uh, lagaika pansar uh Amililistari, uh, Ami somograma hydro sector lai biaskolai or uh prosandira. Uh In our policy. That's. But for the joint venture project to attract the, uh, attractive. Uh, foreign investment, uh, the, the project can form in the, come in the form of the joint venture or a single entity can come to develop the project. That is one of the policies that we have. And, similarly, we have an aggressive expansion of the transmission and distribution facilities that we are conducting as of now. And, uh, to address the, the, uh, currency risks, which is very particular in the hydropower development, uh, we have posed the Hedging facility to attract to address that risk. Uh, in terms of the power purchase rate, uh, we have a different kind of the power purchase rates, uh, for, uh, uh, the storage projects as well as the picking, uh, run of the river projects, which we, and also for the, for the renewables like solar energy, uh, that will attract, we understand, uh, we understand that that will attract the, uh, the private sector. And in terms of the fiscal incentives, we have a, Uh, we have, uh, incentives on the income tax, the VAT, and the custom duties. So, uh, with this in the, in the, in the summary, these kind of provisions will make us, uh, make a better environment for the, uh, foreign as well as the internal investment to come in the hydropower projects. Uh, again, Norway Kosa, uh, Deputy Director General. The presentation of prostit garden alma sarkari swamitolaganisa uh sad ramro uh uh lagani uh i i uh sale yoga uh nirmanaikosai malagani. Uh, uh, upper takos versus sara sarkar yeah, private sector mra uh uh hydro power sector uh ramroul. Uh, as rightly pointed out by the representative of the Norwegian government in earlier presentation, we have a Norwegian company, uh, that has invested in Nepal and has been running the projects very successfully for many years. Uh, in terms of the, uh, the, the foreign investment, uh, there's a very large project, uh, that is under construction. It's an auto 3 hydropower project of capacity 900 megawatts. This is from the private side and also from the public sector side. Uh, uh, we are, uh, uh, 456 megawatt of Upper Tamakoi hydropower project is under construction and it is nearing to the completion. So this is how we, we. We intend to uh uh to combine the private sector uh initiative and the public sector uh first to to to develop the hydropower projects it's uh tagaki and it's uh ERC uh uh it happened aboutosa the sle soander Nieman garsa uh it a or so for the, uh, hydro powerkbazar, uh, nirmangarikson. Uh royeswata mob uh soyi uh lika sala or la uh you say nepaluynitier uh uh hua nitiats uh Nepal saraakarekolagi yako private sector salmonsaka rekolagi or arro sars. Uh, in addition, in addition, we also do have, we, we do have a regulatory. Uh, entity. Uh, it's more like a separate regulatory agency and the, the independent agency, uh, that, that will create a competitiveness in the, in the power markets. Uh, so these are, uh, some of the, because of these reform activities that we have initiated will allow, uh, the increased mobilization of the public and private sector in the development of Hyderabader projects, and we also believe that these measures will further motivate our ever dependent development partners, uh, the bilateral partners and the multilateral partners to collaborate more on the development of public sector-led large hydropower process. Uh, Parvindi, thank you. OK, thank you so much, uh, Honorable Minister. Um, so we have a question here for uh Mr. Benoit Rivas from Switzerland. Um, so the question is, uh, a, a large share of companies are, are making lower profits these days in relation to day or head energy market revenues in Switzerland, and some pump storage companies show even lower profitability due to low price spread on the market and high capital costs. So the story of Switzerland is very interesting for the rest of the world. And, uh, uh, so, um, the, uh, uh, listeners would like to know what are the emerging lessons for the world from Switzerland. Thank you. Yeah, thank, thank you very much for your, for your question. I mean, the, the financial difficulties of the producers are, are partially self-inflicted and partially due to flaws in the market design. Self-inflicted is a water royalty in Switzerland. It's, it is up to 25% of operating costs, so pretty high. The royalty as such is a good thing since it remunerates local communities for the use of water, but it's a burden under certain circumstances, especially actually with low market prices. So the market design flaws are the ones I outlined in my presentation. I mean the flexibility. is not remunerated by the markets, and when we see even more recent trends in renewable production such as corporate PPA, do not consider hydropower as an attractive resource. The only remedy we have found so far in Switzerland is on one side investment aid for new or upgraded hydro capacity, and we finance that through a grid surcharge like solar wind, and as I mentioned earlier, I can imagine and realize that such aid may not be feasible in many countries. Now we are working on another instrument under consideration of a so-called storage reserve which would be remunerated to the producer in order to keep water in keep water available in case of shortages, and this may be an avenue for countries where hydro is subject to strong seasonality. So that are some of the ways we try to solve this problem. Thank you. Uh, thanks very much. Uh, thank you. Uh, now let's uh move on to, uh, uh, Mr. Ivan Johansson. Um, so Ivan, the question that, uh, uh, that someone wants to know is in Norway, Almost all electricity comes from renewable energy sources, uh, with hydropower providing the vast majority, and increasingly Norway is trading electricity with neighboring countries like you said, through interconnectors. So could you say a little bit more on the experience gained so far and what are the plans for the future? Thank you. Thank you, Pravin. Um, I think the experiences with this power market in, yeah, in Norway and the Nordic region has been very good. It's been very effective tool for planning for a new investments. So that's the kind of, uh, the market gives, uh, price signals for new investments. So, uh, I think overall it's, uh, been a, a good tool. But of course, uh, for hydropower it's been. These days it's a bit challenging, as mentioned by Switzerland, there's extremely low power prices, uh, probably the lowest in 30 years, but that's due to a lot of water and snow still in the mountains. You have the corona effect, the lower, uh, consumption and also a mild winter, but it's also affected by other, um, Things that's happening in this Nordic market. And in the last years, uh, Norway has had a Average surplus of maybe 5 to 10% of the power production. So having access to other markets to actually be a net exporter is of course very important for the power producers. Uh, you can export not only peak power but actually base load of firm power in, uh, the years. And uh I think also for the consumers, it's, uh, in dry years or cold years, it's also good to have an opportunity to import power from neighboring countries. It's kind of flattens out the price structure a bit. You don't have the price shocks when, uh, in dry years and cold years. And as I mentioned, we have not two interconnectors in place, so that will be increased uh exchange capacity. But of course, for the power producers, well, I'm working in the government, so I think the power producers are closer to answer the biggest challenges, but I think the challenge is to get the understanding in Let's say non-hydropower countries, get an understanding for actually the real value for peak power, that you have to pay more for peak power than base load. I mean, it's going to uh Restaurant having an excellent beef or going to a fast food restaurant. They're both meat, but I mean, they get a uh increasing acceptance of the value for peak power. I think that's Something the whole industry and government should work to. To get through And of course also in Norway we have. Still saw a lot of possibilities for new hydropower and also upgrading and expansion of old projects, but there are some, yeah, let's say, Heavy discussions about the taxation profile because hydropower, large hydropower in Norway, about 10 megawatts, they have to pay a resource tax which is quite high. So if the power prices are low, there will not be much left for new investments or upgrading. So this tax profile for hydropower versus other renewables which. Does not have the same heavy taxes. That's also a debate in Norway, and I think also I have to pay about something like royalties to the local communities as well, so the total. burden in that way is also high when the prices are low. So, so the market, market prices will decide a lot of the future of new developments, I think. So if that was the answer to the question, I'll stop there. Uh, thank you. I've been, um, actually, um, this is a very nice segue into what you just said, uh. About the communities owning hydropower, uh, because a lot of countries like Nepal are trying to do hydro for the people. They call it hydro for the people. And I remember in Norway, the hydropower development started with the communities, with the municipalities, and then it grew bigger. I mean, this would probably be a very good lesson for emerging countries like Nepal. Do you want to say a few words about that? Yes, the Norwegian hydropower development, when it started around 1900, it started very decentralized. Uh, often you had good locations with the waterfalls close to a fjord and where you could develop power production in line with, uh, industrial developments for, for fertilizer production or aluminum or other products, and then, uh, Uh, the hydropower legislation set up rules that said that, uh, hydropower producers should provide the local, uh, community with 10% of their total production for at self cost, etc. They also introduced, uh, in the legislation rules for what we call benefit sharing. Uh, on the various levels from. From, um, local taxes related to the production to getting access to cheap power, etc. So that's what, that's been the key issue since actually this major licensing laws came in place in 1917. Something the politicians at that time and later on a strong focus on that the hydropower is for the country, development of the country and also the local areas. And I think that's also why hydropower that a lot. Local acceptance for new developments because you see all the benefits it brings not only for the state, but actually for the local areas, job creation and other benefits that goes into the municipalities. Where you can support schools and other tools. So, uh, so I think this model has at least are Norway very well. OK, thank you, thank you so much. Uh, I see there are lots of questions on the, uh, YouTube on the technology, batteries, uh, batteries versus hydro, and these sort of very technological questions which will be dealt in second session. So please stay tuned on. Now I move to a question for Mark, and, uh, um, the, the, I will try to summarize several questions into one. Uh, Mark, uh, given that TNC, um, is advocating for environmental conservation, uh, meanwhile, increased deployment of variable renewable energy raises new questions, and many of our client countries are asking for help to understand how hydropower, including pump storage, can help the VRE integration. How does TNC reconcile conservation and the energy transition? Thanks. Thanks for that, Robin. It's a really important question, and I think I touched on elements of this, uh, under the umbrella of really taking on a system scale approach, recognizing the need to deploy energy solutions that lead to reliable, low-cost electricity to fuel economies. We acknowledge that there's no such thing as an impact-free energy solution. And we all would urge the transition away from impactful, uh, climate impacting resources like fossil fuels. So moving away from those and as we have utilized hydro for many years, we would argue that the time really is now to move away from hydro as the first renewable energy choice, uh, avoid new hydro when possible. Uh, but as much as one can to meet environmental concerns, really look at how do we increase the capacity of existing hydro through, uh, efficiency improvements and new turbines removing silt and other challenges, repurposing those existing hydros to serve as a balance for intermittent renewables, and then of course considering sustainable options for, uh, pumped hydro. Again, I pointed out in my presentation, solar and wind and other land-based renewables also have significant impacts, and that's why we would advocate for first choice, looking at already either built like roofs and parking lots or converted. Degraded lands for the deployment of solar and wind, but we recognize also that there's not enough of those without looking at converted lands, degraded lands, and that's why a program such as mining the sun, which has been so successful in Nevada and West Virginia, which. Looks for opportunities as the previous speaker mentioned to to create new jobs uh in this clean energy market and so how does one transition from former mining lands to use those properties for uh for sustainable solar and wind operations and certainly the integration of all these to meet uh the sustainable. Energy needs balancing intermittency providing uh dispatchable power is a critical challenge. We're certainly optimistic with the uh opportunities to utilize batteries in this mix, but also through interconnected systems and uh advanced designs we know that there is quite a bit of room in the system to allow for increased intermittent uh. Over the next 10% of growth in that in that way, so we certainly are party party to conversations around advanced batteries around pump storage and repurposing hydro, but would advocate for a system-wide approach to look at the least impactful opportunities to develop advanced energy systems. OK, thank you, Mark. Thank you. Uh, there's a question for uh the honorable minister from Nepal. Um, so they, there is increasing talks about Nepal exporting hydropower to the region, uh, India and beyond to Bangladesh. Uh, and this has been going on for a very long time. What is the status of talks and, uh, and project realization, and how will the markets, uh, make it possible for the exchange of power between India and and Nepal, for example? Thank you. N. So una yeatar debtsanga power exchange with the hekason the baratsanga the capacitika ekaihota bindu urbatami power exchange with the hekason Ali sarse uh kivichematako uh uh Dalkemzaffarpur sampanna kosaijana uh teri uh guapurnani nirmanosaran. Yes uh stillo aka Nirman uh Bangladesh simina. These are shark energy uh framework agreement. Basically, uh. Domestic grid connection interconnection agreements. Uh, I mean it's a, uh, power trade someone the agreement you nose, uh, megawatt shyamatako Auntirole dedicated sekB transmission line map but no, uh, power so this is the other thing I'm in Nepal Barat, uh, Bangladesh Bma region. uh parkolagikurarra or nirman voikosa kanuniarra or nirman voikosa opposite someota so waikosa they said agamidirma other top huge chatrama uh bibaparco ramrobatar buns. Uh, thank you, Ravind G. Uh, it was in the year 1971 when Nepal and India had started power exchange between the countries. And Between these, uh, uh, 222 countries there are a total of the 21 points of the interconnection of the different, uh, uh, voltage level, and the recently, uh, uh, this 400 kV, uh, capacity transmission line bulk cable Muzaffarpur, uh, has been, uh, completed. And similarly, at another crossbor transmission line Gakpur is, uh, is in the direction for the construction. Um, So that's the one area. And then in in the year 2014, uh, there was, there was a Agreement between the Nepal and India on the power trade, power trade, and the This has allowed for the, for the, for the infrastructure development and to make a legal infrastructure to have an exchange and the trade of the, uh, of power between the two countries. Uh, In addition to that, uh, uh, with the second, uh, cross-border Phuw Gorakhpur, uh, there are 3 other, uh, 3 other lines that are, uh, uh, we are pursuing. Uh, the, the, the third one is the, again, the second cross-border, uh, Phutwal Gorakhpur, Dalke Muzaffarpur line from where we expect to evacuate the, uh, 900 megawatt, uh, Orun 3 hydroelectric project, uh, which is under construction. And similarly, there are other 22 cross-border high voltage, 400 kb cross-border line that are being, uh, jointly, uh, studied by the two governments at the present. Uh, on the regional side, we have, uh, on the, on the, we have, uh, entered into the framework agreement for energy, and we have entered into the grid, uh, interconnection, uh, agreement, uh, and, and similarly, we have a, uh, we have entered into, uh, a kind of uh, uh, understanding with the Bangladesh on the, uh, to cooperate in the power sector. So, These are the, the software part and the with the with the hardware part like the infrastructure development, we expect to have uh uh the power trade between the two nations, and that will ultimately reach beyond the bilateral to the to the uh to the trilateral and ultimately to the regional level and the multilateral forum, uh. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you so much, uh, Honorable Minister. Uh, there's a question, uh, there are quite a few questions on climate change, and I would like to address this to, um, uh, to Switzerland. Um, so the question is, uh, hydropower plants in Switzerland have benefited from an above average amount of water from the melting ice of alpine glaciers, uh, which are diminishing due to climate change. And great amounts of the remaining glaciers are expected to change or even disappear within several decades. And how is this situation being assessed in Switzerland because this is so relevant to the Himalayas in Asia and the Andes Mountains in, in, in South America and other countries, which, uh, uh, have glaciers and are rich in hydropower. Thank you. Thank you for your question. We have done different modeling but do not have a definitive picture yet. What we can see is that melting glaciers will provide more water for at least in the midterm, but melting glaciers are only a part of the equation. Longer term changing precipitation patterns, rising temperatures, and less snow could reduce the output by some 5 up to 20%. Precipitation and water availability will tend to smoothen through the year with probably less water in the summer and more in the winter season. Production will tend to follow more closely the demand, which is positive. But variability due to weather events or extreme events, erosion, unstable terrain, and floods will also increase and cause additional costs for the production of the generation. So it will be a very challenging period to take into account the climate evolution. Thank you. Thank you so much. Uh, there is a question for Mark. Um, and, uh, uh, the, the question is, uh, um, given that TNC is building up its in-house capacity, as you, uh, alluded around the topic of energy, how can developing countries like Nepal work with you to build better and greener? Thank you. Thanks for that question, and I would start by suggesting that any collaboration between government and an organization like uh like TNC would include partnerships. I'd start with partnerships with the multilateral development community institutions like the World Bank, ISC, Inter-American Development Bank, and others are, are the perfect conduit for collaboration. We certainly do provide direct assistance working with governments and other local partners so that would be the second suggestion is that working with uh locally based community or other nonprofit organizations in your country to provide and share. Some of our technical expertise and finally of course we could be reached to directly and uh we can share some of our uh knowledge experience and suggestions to you and then work together to find ways to uh deploy that in the field thanks for that. OK, uh, thank you very much. Um, I have a question for Norway. Um, so Norway has a lot of hydropower experience and like you alluded to different, uh, institutions, etc. Uh, how can the global community continue to benefit from this, uh, expertise? And could you also comment on this topic? Uh, we see increasingly, we see challenges with the, the education and training in this sector. More and more younger people tend to go into other fields, uh, and, and not into, uh, hydropower, and this, this poses a Uh, capacity, um, constraint in the future. So what is your experience in Norway regarding this, uh, topic? Thank you. Thank you, Pravin, and thank you for the question. Um, when it comes to the Norwegian experience and the institutions I listed, uh, I think uh they are open for collaboration or cooperation so I can, I think make direct contact or you can, I can facilitate contact as well if someone has more concrete per uh questions or issues they want to. Take up so corporate and when it comes to especially development cooperation, uh, and we and other institutions has cooperated lots of development. Developing country. I think one of the great successes is, uh, Nepal, which, uh, and as the honorable minister mentioned that also led to the Starcraft building a hydropower plant there as well. So, but it has to be demand-driven by the countries who wants to cooperate in the hydropower sector. And for ICH training courses, they are open for all participants in all countries, but they are also courses that are partly done or funded for the participants, and most of the courses are in the regions. They used to be more courses. I know, more, most of the courses are, let's say in Latin America or Africa or Asia. So, but, but I can facilitate contacts if, uh, someone has more. Um, dedicated questions. And then when it comes to education, uh, in the hydropower sector, I think today there's Pretty good, um, recruitment to the, to, to the university and from them and other universities when it comes to hydropower and energy in general, I think it's It was much more difficult 20 years ago when we had, uh, the general public had that idea that, uh, large hydropower development epoch was over and there was not so many new jobs, etc. but they have done a lot of good work to profile themselves for younger students. That's, and of course, the climate debate has helped all renewable energy sources that young people that want to work in this sector, which is renewable and Climate friendly and we also have the opportunity to, to work internationally both in developing countries and emerging countries, which is of course uh Uh, the youth of today are very interested in traveling and doing good work abroad. So I think, I think, um, you see the, how the educational recruitment were going in Norway is in a positive way, but it was very difficult, let's say 20 years ago. And if you go to the petroleum sector, it's maybe a little bit different topic now because it's For more challenges to get recruitment there than it is in the renewable energy sector or hydropower sector. I think it's about how you promote yourself as an industry and I mean, it's green, climate-friendly, sustainable, leads to development. So there's many reasons why young people should, uh, educate themselves within the hydropower sector. But it's all about emission promotion, I think. Uh, it's not only about that, but it's, uh, how you perceive hydropower, and I think there's been a lot of good developments the last years in hydroha protocols and all sustainability work that's going on and actually bring the message out that you don't do hydropower today in 2020 as you did in 1960s or 191970s. OK, thank you so much, Arvin. Uh, we got, uh, about 5 minutes left, actually 4, and, uh, there are lots of questions regarding the ancillary services and how do we value hydropower and how does that, uh, come into the economic analysis, which is, uh, exactly the, uh, segue into the, uh, uh, next session on, on this very topic. So we'll wait for that. Um, if we were to tweet now, tweeting is the, um, the world today, social media, etc. um, can I just ask you, um, what would you, what would you tweet from this session? What was short message from each one of you? Can we start with Mark, please? Sure, I would say encouraged by the uh. Increasing opportunities to integrate hydro and sustainable renewable energy to both meet energy needs and build back better coming out of uh COVID crisis. All right, thank you very much. Can we now turn to Nepal? Any uh message uh you would like to share with the rest of the world? Thank you. Uh, Nanivatra, I'm the hydro Parma, uh, Ramro Gurirahikaton or Norvi. Yes, also the experience whenlira hekasu Royoa or a sustainable uh energy who renewable energy penny who the it's a uh environment go like in lamroganosaka uh ao hydrosetramabisobapi uh soakarema ni song song song. Uh Uh, thank you, Pravinji. Uh, we are trying to do better in developing our hydropower projects, and we certainly, uh, will try to learn from the experiences of the, uh, countries like Norway and Switzerland and many other countries that have done very far, very good in the, in, in this sector. And, uh, we certainly know that this is a sustainable form of energy, if developed properly, and then a very good renewable, uh, source of energy. Uh, uh. Mm I mean our song on its own the environment the asthma. So we, we, we, we are all, uh, all together, uh, to all the, all the countries to develop this hydropower as a sustainable and a renewable source of this. Thank you, thank you so much. Can we now turn to Switzerland, please? Yeah, thank you very much. Um, I, I would underline the importance to, to exchange on on experience and expertise between the different countries and uh to, to continue our efforts in, in order to to catch this untapped potential and great potential of hydro that will be essential for the energy transition in many countries. Thank you. And last but not least, Ovi. Thank you Pravin. I'm not much of a tweeter, uh, normally, well, I think, uh, it's been a very good session, and they, they also confirmed that hydropower is, it's, it's by far the largest source of renewable energy, but it has so many other qualities. I mean, in, and it talks about climate adaption and it's, uh, beefing up other renewables and, uh, providing jobs, uh. Economic development. So I think we just have to bringing out the good message so that people understand that hydropower is also a renewable energy source and of course the, the most important in my view. All right, thank you so much. Um, it's been a wonderful session. I'd like to thank, uh, all, all the, uh, panelists, and, uh, please stay tuned on. Uh, we take a break for half an hour and then, uh, we come back in half an hour for the second session, a round of virtual applause. Thank you so much and have a good day. Stay safe. Thank you. Bye-bye. OK. I right. Live streaming has stopped. That was OK, that went quite well. Great. Thank you. I Thank you very much, uh, Mauricio, and thank you very much, um, uh, Mr. Rivas, uh, and, uh, to all the speakers as well. Um, the interaction on YouTube has been, uh, very good, and, um, the connection was very solid, and, and appreciation of the topics has been, uh, really, really positive, uh, at least on, on YouTube thus far. I, I wasn't able to answer your question on ancillary services. Uh, it will be discussed in the second session, but it's it's definitely important, uh, for, uh, project developers. To consider the flexibility at a very early stage and to address that because the new renewables have externalities they do not cover and without in Switzerland without hydro we would not be able to benefit from the development of new renewables the way we do. So even if the markets, less mature markets do not remunerate the flexibility, it is important to identify at a very early stage which services can be provided either to grid operators or to the high voltage grid operator in order to be able to capture part of the value, because If you have not a proper CO2 price, if you have different subsidies on different energy sources, you won't be able to compete with your hydropower plant. And that's exactly what I see that the colleague from Norway still online, exactly what Norway is experimenting now with the very low prices that you see on the European markets on certain hours. And in the future when the markets are developing, there are even negative prices coming, and there the flexibility of hydro is again able to capture part of this value. Mm. Very, very important question, very complex topic, yeah. I'd like to voice in from SMAP on that one because this is exactly one of the things that the HDF will focus on going forward and how to enable flexibility in the design of hydropower plants itself as it also is determined by the waterway, the units, and we need to at a very early stage identify what the future performance of the plant will be. And this is also where we will build on a lot of the experience gathered from Norway and also from the various research projects in Europe, and I always look forward to listen to Elena and Alejandro. We'll touch on this later too. To join the 2nd session, but I wish you a good discussion and all the best. Thank you. Bye bye. Yes, we will be sending you a summary of the whole sessions. We will be sending you a summary. Yes, thank you. Thank you so much, Pravin. Thank you. Good to see you again, Mr. Abas.

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Welcome remarks by Makhtar Diop, Vice President, WBG; Speakers: Barsha Man Pun, Minister of Energy Water Resources and Irrigation, Nepal; Benoît Revaz, State Secretary and Director of the Swiss Federal Office of Energy; Oyvind Johansen, Assistant Director General, Ministry of Petroleum and Energy, Norway; Mark Lambrides, Director Global Energy & Infrastructure, The Nature Conservancy. Moderated by Pravin Karki, Global Lead Hydropower, World Bank.

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