iAMP-Hydro at HYDRO 2025

The iAMP-Hydro project was honoured to have been accepted as a full session during HYDRO 2025 in Thessaloniki, Greece.

On 24 October, 70 participants followed the presentations from the iAMP-Hydro partners who are working together to digitalise the European hydropower fleet with various tools combined that finally shall enable operators

• to save on repair costs by knowing before how the status of the hydro equipment is developing (using condition monitoring),
• to prepare on future flow availabilty for energy generation and consequently on energy prizes (weather and flow forecasting), and
• to operate the hydro plants in an environmental friendly way (using eco sensors that inform about gas saturation upstream and downstream) 

The session focused on the project work that is carried out in the two Greek pilot sites (Asomata HPP and Makrochori HPP) and started with a short introduction about iAMP-Hydro by Israel Ohiemi (from project partner TCD, Ireland),  followed by Panagiotis Vairamakis (from PPC Renewables, Greece) who informed more about the two project pilot sites in Greece. Then, Bhaskar Paudel (TCD, Ireland) explained how the sensors work that are enabling the condition monitoring, and Ida Vartia (from NORCE, Norway) complemented the sensor updates with a presentation about the eco sensors that measure gas saturation levels in water bodies, which could endanger fish lives if critical values are reached. 

Flow and energy forecasting formed the third part of Session 32. Bogdan Popa (POLITEHNICA Bucharest, Romania) presented one-day-ahead forecasts for the Asomata and Agia Varvara reservoirs (covering precipitation, temperature and flow data), and Edwin González (CARTIF, Spain) presented early results which indicate that AI-based methods can reproduce turbined water volumes at Asomata up to a week ahead with good accuracy, offering potential benefits for reservoir operation, maintenance planning and coordination within cascaded systems.

Presentations available:

• I. Ohiemi -Intelligent Asset Management Platform for Hydropower
• P. Vairamakis - Background to Greek iAMP hydropower cases
• B. Paudel - Condition monitoring sensor installations at Asomata
• B. Popa - Flow and available power forecasting model development
• E. Gonzalez - AI-based approaches for enhanced flow and energy forecasting in the European hydropower industry

After the presentations a discussion led by Ewa Malicka (President of the Polish Small Hydropower Association TRMEW, Poland) and Ingo Ball (project partner WIP, Germany) evolved. The discussions pointed to wider implications for the industry. Participants underscored the need to strengthen ecological monitoring across Europe, reconsider sensor integration strategies for turbine diagnostics and continue developing hybrid forecasting approaches that combine physical understanding with data-driven models. As Europe works to modernise its hydropower fleet and align operations with environmental and digital-transition objectives, the insights presented in Session 32 contribute to an evolving toolkit that may support more resilient and sustainable hydropower management across the European continent and beyond.
Looking ahead, it can be noted that the application of artificial intelligence in hydropower is likely to extend well beyond predictive maintenance. Potential areas include power and price forecasting, optimisation of multimarket participation, and integrated operational planning across cascaded systems.

The iAMP-Hydro consortium likes to thank the organisers of HYDRO 2025, Aqua Media International Ltd, for facilitating the great opportunity to showcase the project work.