Investment attractiveness of the small hydropower sector and its impact on reducing carbon dioxide emissions

The paper examines the impact of the investment attractiveness of the small hydropower sector on the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. Estimation of carbon dioxide emissions reduction has been carried out under actually realized potential and realization of all economically feasible potential of small rivers in Ukraine. The results have demonstrated that the realization of all economically feasible potential of small hydropower will increase the reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 21.8 times in comparison with emissions secured by realized potential as of 2018. Considering the fact that the feed-in tariff has the greatest impact on investment attractiveness of this sector, the assessment of the cost of generating electricity using the Levelized Cost of Energy method was carried out to compare obtained result with the feed-in tariff. The results have shown that the feed-in tariff is adequate to compensate electricity generation costs and return quickly start-up investments and that further development of this sector requires elimination of non-price obstacles.