Mayor, dear guests and participants at Hydropower '05.
As the Minister responsible for the Norwegian hydropower and water resources sector, it is a great pleasure for me to welcome you to Hydropower 2005. I am especially pleased to see so many hydropower professionals coming to Norway from all over the world.

Growing up in this region, I am glad to see such a large and important conference taking place in Stavanger – the unofficial capital of South-Western Norway. For many, Stavanger is best known as the “Petroleum Capital” of Norway, where you find many of the large oil companies as well as the Petroleum Directorate.

However, the surrounding county of Rogaland is one of the most important areas for hydropower production in Norway, and some of Norway’s largest hydropower plants and reservoirs are located not far from Stavanger.

During the post-conference tour, you will visit the Ulla-Førre hydropower scheme, which is the largest in Norway. Norway is a country blessed by nature in terms of energy. I am proud to say that Norway plays an important role in the energy sector world wide. Norway is the third largest net exporter of crude oil in the world, and we rank among the three leading gas suppliers to the European gas market. Along with this considerable oil and gas production, Norway is the world's sixth largest hydropower producer, with an average annual production of about 120 Terawatt hours. The installed capacity is close to 28 000 MW, spread around most parts of the country.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, hydropower was considered a resource that should be of benefit to the whole society. Local communities have received substantial economical compensations from hydropower developments. The public participation at various levels is secured through the legislation, which has extensive public consultations as a prerequisite for a democratic and thorough licensing process. An open and transparent licensing process, which includes all stakeholders, is crucial in order to gain social acceptance for further hydropower development.

Norway was one of the first countries to introduce a free power market for electricity in production and trade. Today, Norway is an integrated part of a Northern European power market, where substantial amounts of power are traded via the power pool – NordPool – in Oslo.

Unlike most other countries, we have restructured the electricity sector without privatisation. 85 per cent of the Norwegian hydropower production is owned either by the state or the local authorities.

Domestic demand for electricity is almost by 100 per cent covered by renewable and clean hydropower, which has been very beneficial to our environment. In a "normal year", speaking in terms of precipitation, domestic demand exceeds the production capacity. This has made Norway vulnerable in years of extreme drought. During the winter of 2002/03, when the level of the reservoirs was low due to a very dry late summer and fall of 2002, we experienced dramatic rises in the price level in the electricity market for a short term.

The Government is looking into various strategies to close the gap between domestic supply and demand. We started a programme several years ago with the aim of supporting new renewable sources, such as wind-power, biomass and introducing energy efficiency initiatives. These sources are interesting supplements, but they still provide relatively small amounts of energy compared to hydropower, which will continue to be the backbone of our domestic supply. I also hope we will see the utilisation of some of our abundant resources of natural gas, which would give a very substantial addition to our power balance.

Even if Norway has protected about 390 watercourses, with a power equivalent of 44 Terawatt hours a year, there is still a considerable potential to develop. This can be done both through environmentally friendly new projects as well as upgrading and extension of existing installations. In addition, the Ministry has recently introduced a strategy for promoting small hydropower projects, going up to 10 MW. From the positive reactions so far, this area looks very promising.

Since October 2001, when this Government came to office, there has been issued licenses for hydropower projects amounting to a total potential of close to 2,1 Terawatt hours a year. I am also pleased to note that during the last two years, small hydropower projects totalling more than 400 Gigawatt hours a year has been licensed. In 2004, 27 projects with a total potential of 270 GWh was licensed, and this was almost the double figures compared to 2003.

Licensed hydropower projects from 1990 to October 2001 amounts to about 2,1 Terawatt hours a year. During the last period of 3,5 years we have consequently licensed the same amount of hydropower as the foregoing period of close to twelve years! In my view, this shows that the hydropower era in Norway is far from over, and that sustainable hydropower development will have a bright future.

On the global scale the world is facing two major challenges related to energy. The first is environmental impacts of all kinds, but in particular greenhouse gas emissions – a result from production and consumption of energy from fossil fuels.

The second challenge is to strengthen the world’s vulnerable energy supply.

According to the International Energy Agency, the vulnerability in energy supply will increase, and the CO ₂-emissions are estimated to be more than 60 percent higher in 2030 than today, if current government policies do not change. Energy supply based on fossil fuels has been the main key for developing our modern society. An economy exclusively based on fossil fuels has several obvious limitations in the long term perspective.

Hydropower is widely regarded as a clean and environmentally acceptable energy source when carried out with due care concerning the environment. As a renewable energy source, hydropower will be even more beneficial to countries where thermal power plants are the alternative to further development of the electricity sector

As the by far most important renewable energy source, hydropower is therefore bound to play a prominent role when it comes to provide substantial volumes of emission-free and sustainable energy in the years to come.

In Bonn last year, Norway was one of the 154 signatories of the final Political Declaration of 4 June, which states that all hydropower is regarded as renewable. By signing the final declaration, we also supported the view that identifies all hydropower as one of the renewable technologies to be substantially increased with a sense of urgency. This statement was a logical follow-up to similar statements made during other high-level conferences such as the Ministerial declaration of the 3 ^rd> World Water Forum in Kyoto in 2003 and official statements made during the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002.

In my view, these statements tell us that it is very important not to make any distinctions based on type of the renewable energy source or the size of the project. It is the total environmental impact that must be assessed, and preferably also in a way that also takes the alternative options into consideration. This is best done during a thorough and transparent licensing process.

During the last decade, there has been an increasing focus on various negative aspects connected to hydropower, and especially the impact from large dams. The World Commission on Large Dams launched its final report "Dams and Development" a few years ago. This report led to a debate regarding the benefits and negative impacts from large dams.

In the official Norwegian comments, issued in June 2001, we agreed that the report pointed to some very important issues, but several of the Commission’s recommendations were not shared by the Norwegian Government. Norway is in a fortunate situation because we build dams mainly in connection with hydropower projects, and not for flood prevention and irrigation, which is the main purpose for a majority of countries. For many countries, developing new hydropower projects, often in connection with multi-purpose dams, is a question of making the desired economical leap forward to close the gap between the developed and developing countries when it comes to welfare for the population.

The industry’s role in gaining public acceptance by carrying out hydropower projects in a sustainable and responsible way is crucial. This must also be done by a transparent process including all stakeholders, even if the national authorities must have the final saying. In this regard, I will commend the International Hydropower Association with the work they have done regarding the Sustainability Guidelines that were issued in November 2003.

These guidelines emphasize that by promoting good practice and continuous improvement, hydropower projects will be sustainable.

This initiative from the industry itself clearly defines the roles and what is expected from responsible hydropower companies. During a meeting earlier this morning, I was given an interesting presentation of the work the International Hydropower Association has carried out so far with regards to the sustainability guidelines and the implementation of the data collection of best practices which will be made public via Internet. I see this work as an important step in order to reach out to meet some of the critics and criticism of hydropower, whether this has been fair or not.

Such a pro-active role will help to bridge the differences between various stakeholders and in the end lead to more effective and less controversial projects.

The Norwegian Government has encouraged a major increase in the co-operation on energy and hydropower development with other countries during the past decades. In recent years, new areas of work have been initiating new legislation and established and organised administrative bodies for water resources management and the electricity sector in several countries. This is an important area of work to gain more acceptances worldwide, and to secure that the benefits of hydropower reach out to as many as possible.

In this context, I will also highlight the continuous work of the organiser of this Conference, the International Hydropower Centre. This centre has during many years arranged a variety of training courses and conferences which has led to a better understanding of how to develop hydropower in a responsible way.

This conference covers a lot of interesting topics regarding various issues related to further development of hydropower. I hope there will be a good exchange of ideas on how to utilise hydropower in an even more efficient and environmentally friendly way in the future.

I want to congratulate the organisers of this highly international and interesting conference, and I am confident that Hydropower 2005 will be of great value to all the participants. It is my sincere hope that this will lead to a better understanding of hydropower as a crucial renewable source of energy.

Finally, it is also my wish that you will take this opportunity to enjoy some of Norway’s beautiful nature during your visit.

Thank you for your attention!