Follow the money: What a dry Danube means for Europe’s energy

**Hannah Mullane** (0:01)
A fast-running stream in the Black Forest in southern Germany. It might not look or sound like much, but this tiny stream will grow to become one of Europe's greatest rivers, passing through 10 countries and four capital cities before spilling out into the Black Sea more than 2,800 kilometers away in Romania. It is the Danube.
More than 80 million people live within the Danube River basin and rely on it for drinking water, commerce or energy. And for energy, it's vital for hydro, coal-fired and nuclear. This summer, severe drought has reduced water levels along the river to their lowest for 30 years, the most extreme drop being recorded in Budapest, Hungary, where levels plunged to 23 centimeters. Flow rates are low too, with two-thirds of the river seeing their lowest rates in 34 years, according to the European Climate Change Observatory, Copernicus. This, all threatening Europe's energy supply. This is Follow the Money on Business Daily from the BBC World Service. I'm Hannah Mullane and this week we're following the Danube, looking at the economic consequences of drought along its banks and the impacts on energy supplies in the heart of Europe.
We start along the Upper Danube in Germany and Austria, where the river is used to power hydroelectric plants. This is where the river is at its fastest, as it tumbles through the mountains. There are 59 dams just on the first 1,000 kilometres of the river. Hydro accounts for about 60% of Austria's electricity generation and about a third of that comes from the Danube.

**Florian Seidel** (1:38)
My name is Florian Seidel and I'm the spokesperson for Verbund, which is Austria's leading electricity utility.

**Hannah Mullane** (1:45)
Verbund operates plants right along the Austrian stretch of the river.

**Florian Seidel** (1:49)
I am here at the Greifenstein Hydro Power Plant, that's 20 kilometers west, upstream of the capital Vienna. It's one of nine hydropower plants at the Danube within Austria's borders and it provides electricity for 400,000 households each year. Downstream below the dam, you see there that the level of water is far below its usual level. Sand banks have emerged and rocks that normally are covered with water, you can see them.
The Danube below the hydropower plant is at least one and a half meter lower than it should be. So we have ships and also some cafes that were built in the river inside. They are also on the dry land.

**Hannah Mullane** (2:32)
And how does it compare to what you normally see at this time of year?

**Florian Seidel** (2:36)
Nobody, no man alive, no colleagues have ever seen such things. This is the visible effect of the man-made climate crisis. The Danube gives us normally, in a normal year in this season, two million liters of water each second. That's really a huge amount. But because of the drought, we have just about 600,000, just a third of the volume that the Danube brings normally in this season. Normally we have the melting of snow in this season in the summer.
And the summer is the most intense generation season for the hydropower, normally.
But we are not in normal days. And if you know that in Austria, the hydropower is the most important source of electricity, you can imagine how difficult this is for us.

**Hannah Mullane** (3:25)
So what does it mean for generation then? How much less are you able to generate?

**Florian Seidel** (3:29)
We lose about 30% of our normal level of generation. So that means that we are dependent on electricity imports. Austria is in the middle of Europe. We are strongly connected with grid to our neighbours. And therefore, we don't have any problems in supply.
But we are dependent from foreign aid.
Some of our gas power plants just run out in emergency cases. And we would have been better if we had more solar and more wind energy in Austria. Austria relied always on hydropower. And we have never faced a crisis like this. And so this will be the key for the future to build up more wind power, more solar power and of course more storage facilities.

**Hannah Mullane** (4:19)
So is that changing already then? People are thinking that this could become a more regular thing, the drought happening in the summer, and therefore you're going to have to change how you generate the electricity.

**Florian Seidel** (4:30)
Yeah, we hope so. People don't like windmills, but we need electricity. We need to get rid of fossil fuels, because otherwise we won't manage the energy transition and the climate crisis.

**Hannah Mullane** (4:45)
So other than changing how you generate the electricity, is there anything else you can do in this scenario to boost that production, or any changes that you can make?