Keeping our planet blue

Water is our element. Humans have been harnessing water to perform work for thousands of years. The Greeks used water wheels for grinding wheat into flour more than 2,000 years ago. The evolution of the modern hydropower turbine began in the mid-1700s when a French hydraulic engineer, Bernard Forest de Bélidor wrote his book called “Architecture Hydraulique.” I am sure de Bélidor would be proud to see what we as engineers managed to complete and how the Hydro industry has developed since. Some evidence of what GE Hydro Solutions has been involved in can be seen in our recently completed hydropower projects such as Tehri/India, Wudongde/China or Lower Kalekoy/Turkey. So, "Valuing water," the theme of this year's World Water Day, is the DNA of our company and of each and every one of us.

The element of life

As much as it fascinates me as an engineer how we have perfected the extraction of energy from water, today I would like us to take a look at water as the element of life. Hydropower is not only responsible for 16 percent of the world's energy supply - it is so much more. Its infrastructure is providing us with services, such as water supply and storage, irrigation, flood control and drought prevention. Data suggests that achieving universal access to basic sanitation service by 2030 would require doubling the current annual rate of hydropower progress. Pure figures that speak for themselves. However, I only understood what these numbers really meant when I heard how one of our teams in Algeria maintained the country's water supply under very tough circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The country is 80% desert, so it is not blessed with an abundance of water. But Algerians can count on one cornerstone of their water supply: the Beni-Haroun raw water pumping station. The station guarantees that 15% of Algeria’s population, or 6 million people, receives an uninterrupted supply of water for drinking and irrigation throughout the crisis and beyond. Without a fully operational pumping station, several billion liters of water in the Beni-Haroun dam, would never reach the six provinces in Algeria’s eastern regions that depend on the supply. My admiration for the 23 workers who confined themselves at the station for months to keep its two giant pumps running glitch-free, can never be great enough. To me, these heroes lived "valuing water" every day anew.

Pacesetter to address climate change

In the next 30 years, it is expected that the demand for water and energy will increase by 50 to 100 per cent. We don't need a crystal ball to see that higher impacts on water availability and on ecosystems and socioeconomic systems connected with water will come along with that increase. Climate change will magnify the situation even further, thus increasing the importance of water storage and water conservation. Hydropower as an industry can help address both demands: it produces electricity and helps manage and conserve water without CO2 emissions. One of the key reasons I joined the Hydropower business was so that I could actively contribute to a more de-carbonized world. I felt inspired by the basic message: Addressing climate change means relying on water. Already today, 95% of all stored energy is provided by water storage. Its storage capacity is 100 times higher than that of any available battery solution. While batteries can fulfill many smaller scale needs — in homes, commercial properties and even cars, for instance—they are not designed for storing the vast amounts of energy needed for communities and industries to ride through longer-term lulls in renewable generation. Hydropower is often seen as the workhorse of the energy transition. This term may sound slightly disrespectful, but it is more than accurate. The more new wind and solar capacity is built, and the more we reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, the more hydropower becomes a key player in a future powered by renewable energy.

So, let's take a few moments today to consciously value water. Let’s be aware that it’s water that takes us to masterpieces of engineering all over the world, be it for irrigation or power generation. It’s water that makes wheat, vegetables and olive trees grow in a desert country like Algeria. But above all, it’s water that helps the earth remain what it must remain for our future generations: our blue planet with an ecosystem that is balanced and thus provides for all of us.

Take care and stay safe,

Pascal