This Guide on how to develop a Small Hydropower Plant, prepared by care of ESHA (European Small Hydropower Association), aims at giving potential developers of small hydropower plants comprehensive information and advice on all necessary procedures for developing a site. It includes the key steps to be followed in order to run a plant ranging from hydraulic engineering, evaluation of water supply, design and site evaluation, civil works and hydraulic structures, electromechanical equipment to environmental impact evaluation, investment and financial issues and administrative procedures.
Details about the initiative background and multilingual downloads are available at the ESHA website. (link)

This document, developed under the Thematic Network on Small Hydropower (TNSHP) project, gives an overview on the SHP sector in the new enlarged Europe in terms of: a) Market development, b) Policy issues and c) Industry status.
Source: ESHA website (link)

The IEA (International Energy Agency) has published in 2007 the report Financing Energy Efficient Homes - Existing policy responses to financial barriers. In its website (link) IEA introduces the report as follows: Existing buildings require over 40% of the world’s total final energy consumption, and account for 24% of world CO2 emissions (IEA, 2006a). Much of this consumption could be avoided through improved efficiency of building energy systems (IEA, 2006a) using current, commercially-viable technology. In most cases, these technologies make economic sense on a life-cycle cost analysis (IEA, 2006b). Moreover, to the extent that they reduce dependence on risk-prone fossil energy sources, energy efficient technologies also address concerns of energy security.