Water supply networks in cities with sloping topography may have a considerable potential for the installation of micro hydropower plants. Since these water supply networks are complex systems with many constraints, the identification of the best locations for such micro hydropower installations is a difficult task. With her research project, Dr. Irene Samora made a significant contribution for answering the question how the available low-head hydropower can be recovered in an optimized way in such complex water supply networks. As a first original contribution the candidate tested experimentally the performance of a novel micro‐turbine, consisting of a five blade tubular propeller (5BTP). The latter is suitable for low-head recovery in water supply pipes. In order to find the optimal locations within the water supply networks for installation of micro-hydropower, Dr. Samora developed a powerful optimization algorithm which considers energy production as well as economic objectives. Finally, Dr. Samora suggests a new method for the evaluation of hydropower potential in water supply networks (WSN). All the developments were tested with several case studies in WSN of four cities in Portugal and in Switzerland. With the analysis of synthetic networks, a first attempt was made to develop empirical relationships for the estimation of possible energy production.