H-HOPE had a strong and wide-ranging presence at the EGU General Assembly 2026 in Vienna.
Across the week, the project was connected to three sessions, five abstracts, and one workshop. While H-HOPE was not always the primary focus of each contribution, it was an important thread running through discussions on hydropower, water infrastructure, energy harvesting, digitalisation, blue-green infrastructure, and the wider energy transition.
This breadth reflects one of the project’s central ideas: hidden hydropower is not only a technical question of recovering energy from water flows. It is also a systems question. How can existing water infrastructure become more resilient, more sustainable, more digitally enabled, and more valuable to the communities it serves?
A broad conversation around water, energy, and infrastructure
The EGU26 contributions showed how the H-HOPE vision connects to several scientific and policy debates.
In one session, the focus was on the future of hydropower in the context of the water-energy-ecosystem nexus. This included discussions on how hydropower can support renewable energy integration, while also responding to environmental constraints, water availability, climate impacts, and ecosystem protection.
Another session placed H-HOPE-related thinking within the wider landscape of multidimensional energy transitions. Here, hidden hydropower and energy harvesting were discussed alongside broader questions of renewable energy modelling, infrastructure retrofitting, local resilience, and the transition toward low-carbon energy systems.
A third session explored nature-based solutions and blue-green infrastructure in urban areas, highlighting the importance of water not only as a resource for energy, but also as a driver of climate adaptation, public space, biodiversity, and urban resilience.
Together, these sessions helped position H-HOPE within a larger conversation: the future of water infrastructure is not only about managing flows, but about creating multifunctional systems that can support energy, data, environmental performance, and public value at the same time.
From large hydropower dilemmas to hidden energy in everyday infrastructure
One of the abstracts, “The Remote Energy Dilemma: Balancing Hydropower, People, and Nature in the Alps and Arctic,” placed hydropower in a wider social and environmental context. The work compared major hydropower facilities in Iceland and Austria, showing that even reliable and low-carbon energy systems can raise complex questions when located in remote and ecologically sensitive regions.
This contribution is important for H-HOPE because it highlights a broader challenge: renewable energy infrastructure must be assessed not only by the electricity it produces, but also by how it affects landscapes, ecosystems, and local communities.
In contrast, other H-HOPE-related work looked at a different opportunity: recovering small amounts of energy from infrastructure that already exists. The abstract on pan-European hidden micro-hydropower potential explored how drinking-water pipelines, irrigation canals, wastewater systems, and open-channel flows could contribute to decentralised renewable energy generation. Rather than requiring large new installations, these approaches focus on retrofitting or integrating low-impact technologies into existing systems.
This is where H-HOPE’s message becomes especially relevant: Europe’s water infrastructure already carries energy. The challenge is to identify where that energy can be recovered efficiently, responsibly, and at the right scale.
Energy harvesting for smarter and more resilient water systems
Another contribution examined whether energy harvesting devices can support the digitalisation of urban water systems.
As water distribution networks and wastewater treatment plants become more digital, they increasingly rely on sensors for pressure, contamination, temperature, and other monitoring needs. These sensors can improve reliability and resilience, but they also require power.
The abstract on water system resilience and reliability addressed this issue by applying a multidimensional feasibility assessment framework to energy harvesting devices in urban water systems. The study considered technical performance, economic viability, environmental impact, and resilience modelling. A key insight was that energy harvesting can support low-power sensors, but that sensor deployment must be strategic. Adding more sensors does not automatically improve resilience if power demand starts to exceed what the local energy harvesting system can support.
This is a valuable finding for H-HOPE. It shows that hidden hydropower should not be seen only as a source of electricity, but as an enabler of smarter, more autonomous, and more resilient water networks.
Material choices matter for VIV energy harvesting
A more technical H-HOPE contribution focused on vortex-induced vibration energy harvesters, or VIV-EH, in water systems.
The abstract “Material Selection for Vortex-Induced Vibration Energy Harvesting in Water Systems: Environmental and Performance Insights from the Verona Case Study in Italy” examined how the material of the oscillating cylinder affects the performance of energy harvesters in wastewater infrastructure.
The findings are highly relevant for the design of future H-HOPE technologies. The study showed that lighter materials with favourable stiffness-to-mass ratios can generate larger oscillation amplitudes and higher harvested energy. Fibre-reinforced composites performed strongly in the analysed case, while aluminium alloys offered a promising balance between energy yield, recyclability, manufacturability, and industrial feasibility.
The key takeaway is clear: in VIV-based energy harvesting, material selection is not a minor engineering detail. It can strongly influence system performance, environmental trade-offs, and the feasibility of deployment in real water infrastructure.
Water infrastructure as public space and climate adaptation
The H-HOPE presence at EGU26 also extended beyond energy generation.
The abstract on revitalising neglected urban waterfronts through blue-green infrastructure compared Reykjavík and Podgorica, showing how waterfronts can remain underused when physical barriers, microclimatic constraints, or insufficient planning limit their connection to urban life.
This contribution broadened the discussion by showing that water infrastructure is not only technical infrastructure. It is also social and spatial infrastructure. Rivers, waterfronts, and water corridors can support public space, cooling, place identity, and long-term urban resilience when designed and governed effectively.
For H-HOPE, this perspective reinforces the importance of thinking beyond devices alone. Energy harvesting and hidden hydropower can be part of a wider shift toward water systems that deliver multiple benefits: renewable energy, monitoring, resilience, environmental performance, and better urban spaces.
A connecting thread across EGU26
Taken together, the five abstracts and three sessions showed how H-HOPE sits at the intersection of several important transitions.
The project connects:
- hidden hydropower and micro-energy recovery
- digital water monitoring and autonomous sensors
- wastewater and drinking-water infrastructure
- hydropower sustainability and ecosystem considerations
- blue-green infrastructure and urban resilience
- decentralised renewable energy systems
- material design and environmental performance
This diversity is a strength. It shows that H-HOPE is not working in isolation, but is contributing to a broader scientific and practical conversation about the future of Europe’s water and energy systems.
Thank you to the H-HOPE contributors
A special thank you goes to David Finger and Baddi Guðlaugsson for their important role in bringing these contributions together and representing H-HOPE throughout the week.
Thank you also to all authors, partners, conveners, workshop participants, and session contributors who helped bring these discussions into the EGU26 programme.
Related EGU26 contributions and sessions
Abstracts
The Remote Energy Dilemma: Balancing Hydropower, People, and Nature in the Alps and Arctic
https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU26/EGU26-21003.html
Enhancing water system resilience and reliability: Application of Multidimensional Feasibility Assessment framework to assess if the deployment of energy harvesting devices in urban water systems enables a higher degree of system resilience
https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU26/EGU26-19267.html
Revitalisation of Neglected Urban Waterfronts through Blue-Green Infrastructure: A Comparative Study of Reykjavík, Iceland, and Podgorica, Montenegro
https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU26/EGU26-6098.html
Material Selection for Vortex-Induced Vibration Energy Harvesting in Water Systems: Environmental and Performance Insights from the Verona Case Study in Italy
https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU26/EGU26-18202.html
Assessment of Pan-European Potential for Hidden Micro-Hydropower and Energy Harvesting in Water Infrastructure
https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU26/EGU26-22943.html
Sessions
Integrated Approaches to Implementing Nature-Based Solutions in Urban Areas
https://www.egu26.eu/session/57509
Innovation in Hydropower Operations, Planning and Retrofitting to Integrate Renewable Energy Sources and Optimize the Water-Energy-Ecosystem Nexus
https://www.egu26.eu/session/57020
Advancing Multidimensional Energy Transitions: Modelling Renewables, Just Transition for Coal Regions, and Real Zero Policy Pathways
https://www.egu26.eu/session/58077
