Insight |


The stakes have never been higher


Former Prime Minister of Australia, Malcolm Turnbull, was named as the new President of the International Hydropower Association in August 2023. IWP&DC catches up with him to see how things have been going


Above: IHA President Malcolm Turnbull with the association’s hydropower mascot Frankie, plus state leaders from Indonesia and Malaysia


After serving as Prime Minister of Australia, was the role as President of the International Hydropower Association one you would have envisioned undertaking several years ago? The IHA is the global voice of sustainable hydropower, still the largest single source of renewable energy and the means of more than 90% of all stored energy. It is an honour to be IHA President, but also a great opportunity to amplify the case for hydropower without the rapid expansion of which we will not be able to succeed in the clean energy transition, so critical in combatting global warming. As IHA’s President, I will promote sustainable


hydropower by building and sharing information on its role in clean energy systems, responsible freshwater management, and climate change mitigation.


Left: Malcolm Turnbull with President Joko Widodo of Indonesia at the World Hydropower Congress held in Bali in 2023


16 | Yearbook 2024 | www.waterpowermagazine.com


What can you bring to the IHA? During my 14 years in Parliament, and especially the three years as Prime Minister of Australia, I promoted effective climate action and the construction of renewable energy systems. In 2017 my government began work on Snowy Hydro 2.0 which is the largest pumped hydro project in the southern hemisphere with over 350GWH of storage and 2.2GW capacity. Pumped hydro is essential to make the variable generation from wind and solar completely reliable – to enable us to move electricity over space and time to deliver continuous and dispatchable renewable zero emission power. Together with Roger Gill, my predecessor as IHA


President, our company Upper Hunter Hydro is developing two large pumped hydro projects in NSW with a capacity of 1.4GW and 14GWH of storage.


You’ve been a long-term supporter of pumped storage hydropower. How and why did this develop? As we stop burning fossil fuels, we move into an energy world where most of our primary generation is from solar PV and wind. Both sources are intermittent, so we need to store excess generation when the sun


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