Hydropower has been harnessed by humans for thousands of years. Initial attempts to exploit its electricity generation potential in the late 19th century led to rapid adoption on commercial scales within a few decades.
Large-scale hydro plants are now an established generating source within the electricity mix of many countries and operators will frequently be responsible for assets of varying capacities, ages and designs.
Risk issues therefore range from those associated with ‘greenfield’ construction projects, often against heighted environmental impact concerns, and older installations where asset integrity and declining operational efficiency must be managed.
More recently, ‘mini-hydro’ schemes have been adopted by communities and developers where the low carbon credentials of the technology can be exploited on smaller scales.
WHAT WE DO
JLT has long-standing experience with hydroelectric generating plants both at the large, commercial utility scale and at the more modest ‘mini-hydro’ scale, many of which plants have been incentivised by government renewable energy tariff schemes programs.
Particular characteristics of the technology and typical challenges include:
- Political risk issues associated with some territories
- Construction risks associated with tunnelling works in many dam designs
- High value loss scenarios related to large ‘impound dam’ designs during construction and once operational
- Exposure to earthquake where facilities are located in seismically active regions.
Insurance solutions
Core insurance products that can be provided across the whole project development and operational cycle are:
Supplementary coverages include:
Our clients also receive the benefit of broad, lender-compliant, policy wording which we regularly review and update to ensure that we continue to offer the broadest cover generally available in the market.
The policy is designed to encompass all of the core insurance coverages associated with the project development and operational cycle noted above.
WHY JLT
JLT has extensive international experience of providing insurance placement and advisory services to developers, asset owners and other key stakeholders, such as project financiers.
Our clients frequently engage us during the development phases of a project.
This ensures that we can provide guidance on insurance program design well in advance of placement and take full account of insurance requirements that may be specified by lenders and other key stakeholders.
This also provides the opportunity to challenge on behalf of our clients any especially onerous requirements that such stakeholders may seek to impose.
Claims management
In the unfortunate event of a loss, we have a specialist team of claims personnel who have deep experience in dealing with large and complex claims across every segment of the power generation and renewable energy industry.
We act proactively to manage the claims process and the other stakeholders involved such as lead underwriters, follow markets and loss adjusters. The team has heavy involvement in the claims process whether this is regarding interim payments, the appointment of specialist experts or site visits.
Our claims team have strong relationships with the leading loss adjustors around the world and are able to recommend the best resources to ensure that our clients’ claims issues are managed by people that understand their business.
