5.3.1 Licences
 All water courses of any size in England and Wales are controlled by the Environment Agency. To remove water from them (even though it may go back in) will almost certainly require their permission in the form of a licence. There are three licences that can apply to a hydropower scheme
· Abstraction Licence, if water is being diverted ‘away from the main line of flow of the river’. In practice, this means that the only type of scheme which can avoid an abstraction licence would be a barrage-type project where turbines are installed on an existing weir and the water remains between the existing banks of the river. All new abstraction licences are now time-limited to 12 years, after which they must be renewed. The Environment Agency have stated that there will be a “presumption of renewal”, but this is clearly an area of risk for new developments.
A variation on the Abstraction Licence is a Transfer License, which the Agency have been applying to certain hydro-schemes since April 2006. This recognises the non-consumptive nature of a hydropower abstraction and does not require the abstracted flows to be measured.
· Impoundment Licence, if changes are being made to structures which impound water, such as weirs and sluices, or if new structures are to be built.
· Land Drainage Consent, for any works being carried out within 9 metres of a ‘main channel’
The Environment Agency may also require a Section 158 Agreement to be drawn up, which defines certain further details on the way the scheme must be operated in order not to conflict with the Agency’s river management duties, e.g. rights of access, the control of river levels, flood waters, maintenance of the weir and river structures, etc..
5.3.2 Approaching the Environment Agency
 Beyond the licensing procedures, the Environment Agency are also responsible for fish protection and other environmental aspects of any riverside development. Whilst they have a duty to protect the environment from harmful development, EA officers are generally sympathetic to green energy schemes. They will also advise on the scope of any environmental assessment that may be needed.
The Environment Agency have published an internal document ‘Hydropower – A handbook for Agency Staff (May 2003)’ which lays out their approach to assessing new schemes and which they will provide on request to prospective developers. That document advises that developers should:
· approach the Agency at an early stage and maintain a dialogue with them
· respect the fact that the Agency cannot compromise its statutory duties
· maintain a flexible approach to the proposed scheme in respect of measures to mitigate its impact, even where this may be at the expense of some generating capacity.
Schemes less than 500kW are not required by law to produce a formal Environmental Impact Assessment. However, all license applications normally need to be supported by an Environmental Report which summarises the details and impacts of the scheme. The Agency will provide the required scope of such report during initial consultations – the main headings are contained in the Handbook mentioned above.
| 
