Hazard to migratory fish caused by the pumped storage hydropower plant Geesthacht

The Vattenfall Hydropower GmbH & Co. KG operates in Geesthacht a pump-storage hydropower plant (PSP). As a lower basin the Elbe River is used, providing process water for the PSP. For estimating the hazard for upstream migrating fish, caused by the PSP by entrainment in the pumps, the acoustic telemetry was used. For that specimens of different species were tagged using acoustics transmitters. Individual swimming patterns has been tracked by installing 21 hydrophones in the Elbe River and lower basin of the PSP. Only a few of overall 262 redetected fish swam into the lower basin of the PSP and almost all of them returned to the Elbe River. Only the fate of three fish could not be clarified, leading to an estimated maximum damage risk for migrating fish of 1.1 %.