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Luc Deroo of ISL: Addressing 21st Century Challenges for Dams and Reservoirs
ISL was the contractor for the construction of the Clapeys small hydro plant, located in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne in the French Alps.
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uc Deroo is the managing director of ISL, a French consulting engineering firm that is active in dam and reservoir work across Europe, Africa, and Asia. He is also involved in the French Committee on Dams and Reservoirs and in the International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD). His work in ICOLD particularly focuses on emerging challenges for reservoirs linked to demographic change, climate change, and technological advances. In this interview, Mr. Deroo tells Hydro Leader about his work and his outlook on the future of the hydropower industry. Hydro Leader: Tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position. Luc Deroo: I’m the managing director of ISL, a consulting engineering company based in France that is active in the fields of dams, hydropower, water resources, and related activities. We are active in Europe, Africa, and Asia. I’m also involved in international organizations like ICOLD. I am the chair of ICOLD’s technical committee dealing with emerging challenges for reservoirs. I also work on hydropower and dams conferences. I sit on the steering committee of these conferences and chair sessions, which focus mainly on innovation. I have spent some time working in Africa, especially in Algeria, Cameroon, Ethiopia, and Tunisia.
Luc Deroo: ISL is not a big company. It has 120 employees, most of them in France and maybe 20–25 in other countries
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Hydro Leader: You’re also involved in the French Committee on Dams and Reservoirs. Would you tell us about that organization? Luc Deroo: It is the French member organization of ICOLD. It is mainly active in the field of dam safety, largely because there are not a lot of new dams being built in France. The people involved in the committee focus on safety issues related to the existing dam and levee portfolio in our country. The committee is also active in sharing experience on projects abroad through technical exchanges. Another of the committee’s current activities is the preparation of the next ICOLD congress, which will be held in Marseille, France, in 2021. During this congress, there will be a symposium prepared by the French committee entitled “Sharing Water: Multipurpose Reservoirs and Innovations.” Multipurpose reservoirs are, for instance, reservoirs that are used both for hydropower and for water resources. Hydro Leader: You are the chair of the ICOLD Technical Committee on Prospective and New Challenges for Dams and Reservoirs in the 21st Century. What are these hydroleadermagazine.com
PHOTO COURTESY OF ISL.
Hydro Leader: Would you tell us about ISL as a company?
in Europe and Africa. We’re active in Western Europe, Africa, and Asia. We work on hydropower projects— both greenfield projects and the improvement of existing hydropower plants—and dam and reservoir projects. We focus on the latter in countries like Algeria and Tunisia, where they tend to focus on water resources, since they don’t have enough water for hydropower.
