Abstract
The Republic of Georgia has vast underexploited water resources. The Khudoni Hydro Power Plant (HPP) project is one of the most controversial projects in the history of Georgia, and has been under discussion for more than 30 years now. The project’s proponents, which include the Government of Georgia (GoG), the Ministry of Energy, the investing company and a number of energy experts, claim it will meaningfully contribute to the country’s economic development, energy independence, and trade balance. However, the project also has numerous opponents including the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources, non-governmental organizations, environmentalists, student groups and local people who are successfully halting the implementation process. Overall, this latter group is dissatisfied with what they describe as inappropriate standards of the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA), inadequate impact mitigation plans and inaccurate estimation of costs.\r This thesis aims to understand how the existing ESIA could be modified to enable more realistic cost-benefit analysis and possibly resolve conflicts. The first part will discuss historic and contemporary energy development in Georgia, which is important for understanding why the country strives so hard to implement this project. Then, the paper will go directly into the history of Khudoni HPP and its associated conflicts. This thesis will analyze the existing ESIA, and based on historical examples of other controversial dams and the peculiarities of the region, will suggest how the ESIA can be improved, what further research has to be done and what kind of impact mitigations should be incorporated. This should enable a well-informed and fact-based conversation among the opposing parties over the Khudoni HPP.