The approaches of measuring and sharing benefits from hydropower construction and development

Hydro resources are provided by nature. The exploitation of such resources can generate significant benefits to hydropower owners, national governments investors and consumers. In the past, governments have usually claimed ownership of hydroelectric resources and passed on the rents to their state-owned utilities, which have used them to expand their systems or provide lower tariffs to their consumers. With the restructuring of the electric power sector in many countries, a more explicit consideration of hydroelectric benefits sharing is required. So far, local peoples' share in hydropower benefits has been negligible. Moreover, hydropower resources are often owned by more than one party, or at least construction and development require cooperation between parties. In this context, the measurement and sharing of hydropower benefits between cooperating parties becomes important. This paper addresses some of the issues involved in cooperative development of hydropower resources, especially for hydroelectric generation. It promotes a better understanding of the sources of the benefits and attempts to derive an analytical basis for discussions between cooperating parties. It is hoped that the analytical approaches developed and the exposition of practical approaches will help form a basis for cooperative resource development in hydro construction industry.