Risk Coverage - Hydropower Development

Every infrastructure development entails a range of uncertainties and risks, some inherent in the nature of the development undertaken and others resulting from the manner in which the development is carried out and financed. Risks increase with procedural remoteness from the project; they can be better contained if the development remains in public hands than they can be where a private developer or investor has to interface with the public sector.

Hydropower development is, on the whole, not considered to be a speculative venture so that risks are to some extent offset by the normally long-term stability of the energy resource.

Risks can be classified under:

• common risks shared equally between the public and the private sector and depending largely on the nature of the development, and
• interface risks specific to a private developer working with or licensed by the public hand

COMMON RISKS

Project preparation

Water availability

First among the risks facing whoever promotes and ultimately owns the scheme are those involved in the conception of the project. The greatest risk in the hydro case concerns water availability. Water resources for small schemes have usually been only cursorily surveyed; flow measurements have extended over only a short period of time and may not have captured multi-annual cycles. Even longer-term records offer no assurance that the hydrology will not change, often drastically, cyclically or even permanently. Network interconnections or standby diesel plant may offer some relief from critical power shortage - at extra cost. Stand-alone schemes may suffer greatly and furnish an unreliable supply. Economic appraisals of the merit of a given scheme have to take such eventualities into account and provide an appropriate justification for whatever standby arrangements may be considered necessary. Supply interruption leading to appreciable amounts of unserved energy can be very costly for both supplier and consumer.

Surface and subsoil conditions and seismicity

Risks associated with surface and subsoil conditions and seismicity should likewise be fully evaluated in the planning stages of a project but, here again, shortage of development funds may have led to shortcuts in project preparation, at the price of sometimes greatly increased civil engineering effort during construction and corresponding cost overruns. Although small schemes are perhaps less sensitive to subsoil conditions and local strengthening can often be readily accomplished, major mistakes have been made and major cost overruns experienced.

Market-related risk

Many schemes, especially stand-alone plants, have to face a market-related risk. Even in cases where a careful market survey has been carried out, there may be uncertainty on:

• the availability of an effective transmission interconnection with the network of the load centres;
• the precise extent of the potential market;
• the development of the market once energy becomes more freely available;
• the price-demand resilience of the consumers which will be experienced when electricity is sold on commercial terms.

Unless there is room for water storage, hydro generation will be rigidly run-off dependent and offers little scope for adaptation to market requirements or for expansion of energy production. There is then danger of an ultimate mis-match of demand and production characteristics which may result in inadequate revenue recovery and unsatisfactory financial performance.

Construction

Inappropriate or faulty design

Risks of inappropriate or faulty design can arise where there is an interface and split responsibility between the designer and the constructor or where scarcity of funds has caused site investigations to be cut short. The risk can be contained through performance guarantees if the constructor is made responsible for the final design. Design problems are exacerbated if lack of funds causes the monitoring and supervisory activities during construction to be curtailed although construction funds may be held back unless funding agencies and investors are satisfied that the design is sound and the anticipated performance is likely to be achieved. The turnkey (design-construct) approach may offer some remedy since interfaces do not occur during the development process and only a single main contractor remains responsible throughout. He will be subject to output and performance guarantees as well as completion penalties.

Construction cost overruns and delays in completion

The same arrangement will help to overcome the risks of construction cost overruns and delays in completion. The comparative complexity of hydro construction makes such schemes prone to slippage during construction. Slippage is not necessarily related to the scale of the work and quite small projects can suffer from the complex interrelation between different activities in the construction phase. The risk is greatest where the proportion of imports is large and where the site is remote. Difficulties and delays are also often encountered at the points of importation of foreign goods and equipment but these can often be overcome if governments are prepared to facilitate importation. If government help is not effective, turnkey and other contractors may claim force majeure and renege on their guarantees.

Force majeure risk

There is thus a force majeure risk which has to be evaluated when a turnkey contract is placed; contractors may wish to pitch contract terms fairly widely whereas the developer and his financial backers will naturally wish the terms to be well constrained. It has also to be recognized that force majeure may be claimed by contractors for any delays incurred which are not under their control, for example delays due to:

• faulty or inaccurate specifications;retarded approvals from whatever public authority may be involved;
• ineffective site management and coordination between non-turnkey contractors;
• construction problems arising from inadequate site data and faulty surveys;
• difficulties with locally contracted labour;
• obstruction from local interest groups due to environmental sensitivities;
• true 'force majeure' due to civil or military disturbance or to adverse natural events (floods, storms, earthquakes).

A turnkey contract does not therefore offer complete protection against delays in completion and cost overruns. Insurance cover may be needed in some cases. Although turnkey contracts are often quoted as being of "fixed price" - indeed this is one of the advantages commonly attributed to turnkey deals - contractors frequently submit supplementary claims by way of contract price adjustment (CPA) on account of:

• changes in design or specification for which they are not responsible,
• unforeseen or unforeseeable problems arising during the construction phase,
• delays experienced which are outside their control.

Contract price risk

Developers may thus face a contract price risk which can have important repercussions not only on the ultimate construction cost but also on the economic merit of the project and on its profitability. The sums originally intended to cover the investment costs may not be adequate to meet the CPA as well, and a new round of financial negotiations may have to be embarked on, possibly in the face of considerable resistance from the parties providing the funds. The risk is not necessarily the same as that arising from construction cost overruns; it can result from the knock-on effect of perhaps relatively minor deviations from the original design or construction concept. It may be mitigated by very careful phrasing of the turnkey contract, a matter that often receives insufficient attention, if only because of the time, legal effort and costs involved in preparing a reasonably tight document. The ultimate remedy is of course to allow no CPA. If inclusion of a CPA clause in the contract becomes inescapable, it is essential to make adequate provision for arbitration.

Operation

Performance risk

A performance risk may not be revealed until the plant has been running for some time. It may be caused by faulty design, construction or manufacture or by the use of inappropriate materials. An extended performance guarantee may not always be effective, particularly as defaults may not become evident for some years after first commissioning of the plant. Serious cases may have to go to arbitration, especially where contractor's guarantees are time-limited. Hydrology and market-related risks will also have to be faced throughout the operating phase as well as operational hazards such as flash floods or unexpected rates of sedimentation. Anticipated output targets may not then be achieved and the merit of the scheme may become seriously tainted. The risk will be greatest for the equity holder who is not protected by the conditional payback arrangements attending contributions of loan capital. Caution would therefore suggest that:

• the proportion of equity is kept low, at 10-30% of the total investment as already mentioned;
• holders of equity capital are permitted fairly liberal terms which provide some protection against possible shortfalls in revenue.

Every hydro scheme imposes its own particular conditions which have to be carefully assessed by the potential investor, as far as he is able to do so ahead of any operating experience with the particular scheme. Translation of experience from one scheme to another is not often possible.

Inflation

Construction costs of hydro plant are prone to price escalation because of the relatively long construction cycle. Many contracts for small plants, for which the construction cycle does not normally exceed 3 - 4 years, include a fixed provision for price escalation, or an appropriate contingency margin, and the contracts are therefore effectively of fixed price. Loan redemption payments will also be at a fixed rate. The inflation risk is then unlikely to affect the initial capital investment or the commitments arising from it unless there are significant contract price adjustments to contend with. Operation and maintenance expenses, though small in the hydro case, will be exposed to general price escalation and so will be any future expenditure on major repair and rehabilitation. The latter, being capital cost items, are financially the more important. The risk of escalation of costs to which this expenditure is exposed is likely to far outweigh any provision for self-financing of future expenditure that has been allowed for in setting the tariff rates.

The risk of inflationary price escalation can be covered to some extent by indexation of power sales prices in line with the anticipated rise of running and rehabilitation costs. Indexation has to be forward looking but the only guide to indexation rates is the inflation rate experienced at the particular time. The indexation rate cannot give precise compensation because future price formation remains unknown and because the price rises to be protected against will not necessarily correspond to current average inflation rates in the economy concerned. Indexation may be held back by government policy restricting the rise of electricity prices or by consumer resistance. Both public and private operators of an electricity supply system may then face the risk of receiving inadequate compensation for increasing costs of supply unless periodic adjustment of indexation rates can be achieved.

INTERFACE RISKS

The risks attending project promotion by the private sector depend greatly on the status of the initial developer and on the time of change-over of management and ownership from the developer to the ultimate owner/operator. Three cases present themselves:

(1) If the project is developed by the public hand, the public-private interface will not come into play until the project is transferred to the private party. The common risks are carried by the public developer, with an interface risk arising at or after the time of transfer;

(2) If the plant is developed by private enterprise and ultimately transferred to the public sector (the BOT concept), the private developer will have to face both the common and the interface risks, but the latter only up to the time of transfer;

(3) If the plant is developed by and remains in the private sector, the private developer and owner will have to face the full range of common and interface risks throughout the life of the plant.