Importance of Hydropower

Among the renewable energy sources, hydropower is considered to become increasingly

important in future as its operational cost is low compared to other renewable energy,
however investment required is huge. Its expected that worldwide average growth rates of
hydroelectricity generation in the future are estimated (par qui) from about 3.6% per year
between 1990 and 2020. The highest growth rates are expected in developing countries so
called water rich countries. Both developed and developing economies have increased the
use of renewable energy as it is critical to reducing emissions of GHG. Hydropower is
currently the major renewable source contributing to electricity supply, and it is anticipated
that its significant will increase in future. The successful expansion of hydropower is
dependent on the availability of the resource and the perceptions of those financing it. Global
warming world-wide and changes in precipitation patterns will alter the timing and
magnitude of river flows. This will affect the ability of hydropower stations to harness the
resource, and may reduce production, but also implying lower revenues and poorer returns.
The very fact that renewable energy resources harness the natural climate means that they are
at risk from changes in climatic patterns. As such, changes in climate due to higher rise in
stock of greenhouse gases may dilute efforts to limit the effect of future climatic changes. In
the past, hydropower has acted as a catalyst for economic and social development
by providing both energy and water management services, and it can continue to
do so in the future

Impacts of climate change on gross and developed hydropower potentials

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Hydropower potential indicators

Till know, numerous attempts have been made to assess the hydropower potential of countries
however the results reveal striking incongruities. The impacts of climate change on
hydropower potential can be further categorized into the gross hydropower potential and the
developed hydropower potential.
The gross hydropower potential is defined as the annual energy that is potentially available if
all natural runoff at all locations were to be harnessed down to the sea level without any
energy losses. The share of this highly theoretical potential which has been or could be
developed under current technology, regardless of economic and other restrictions forms the
technical hydropower potential. From this, the economic hydropower potential is the portion,
which can or has been developed at costs competitive with other energy sources. Finally, the
exploitable hydropower potential takes into account environmental or other special
restrictions. For comparison of magnitudes, Eurelectric (1997) estimates the worlds gross
hydropower potential at 51 000 TWh/a, the economic hydropower potential at 13 100 TWh/a,
and the exploitable hydropower potential at 10 500 TWh/a. The gross hydropower potential
gives a first impression of total resources of hydropower. However, it is just a theoretical
value, only a small part of which is actually developed at existing power stations. Hence the
impact of climate change on the gross hydropower potential will provide an indication of the
general trends, but cannot be directly interpreted as a proportional change in actual
hydroelectricity production. Also a decrease of discharges in a part of the world with no
hydropower stations will not alter the existing hydroelectricity production; thus it is important
for a comprehensive assessment to know where the hydropower stations are located.
Therefore a focus on the developed hydropower potential of existing hydropower stations
(actually supplied electricity by hydropower) completes information given by gross
hydropower potential. With some 2240 TWh/a, the developed global hydropower potential in
1990 accounted for about 21% of the worlds estimated exploitable hydropower potential, or
about 4% of the worlds gross hydropower potential.

- Types of hydropower stations

The impacts of climate change and related expected variations of runoff on hydropower
projects tend to be different for run-of-river and reservoir station. The main difference is
that reservoir stations are able to store and to fully harness todays as well as (even
increasing) future inflow volumes (in reasonable limits). Hence all discharge is utilizable
discharge. Conversely, a run-of-river station cannot utilize the portion of flood discharges that
overflows the station, independent of the magnitude of discharge excess. Likewise in case of
low flow events, reservoir stations would be less susceptible to runoff variability than run-ofriver station because of storage possibility in reservoirs.
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Literature on climate change impacts on hydropower generation overview

Hydropower potential is defined by the river flow, and therefore any changes in the pattern of
flow due to climate change will alter the energy potential. More importantly, as most
hydropower generation capacity is designed for a particular river flow distribution, plant
operation may become non-optimal under altered flow conditions. The capability of a given
hydro installation to generate electricity is limited by its storage and turbine capacities.
Several economic models and engineering tools have examined the impact of climate change
on hydropower potential and production. From different studies following would be the
impact of climate change on hydro-production due to changes in the pattern of temperature
and precipitation.
Examples of potential changes in annual hydroelectric generation
resulting from changes in temperature and precipitation
Region/River

Temperature change

Precipitation change

Hydropower production change

Nile River*

+ 4.7 C

+ 22 %

- 21 %

Indus River*

+ 4.7 C

+ 20 %

+ 19 %

Colorado River**

+ 2.0C

- 20 %

- 49 %

New Zealand***

+ 2.0C

+ 10 %

+ 12 %

Source: *Reibsame et al (1995), **Nash & Gleick (1993), ***Garr & Fitzharris (1994)

Effects of climate change on hydrological systems and run-off

-

The hydroelectricity potential and runoff nexus

Less of work has been done to study the effects of climate change scenarios on gross
hydropower potential and production of installed capacities, particularly when aggregated
(macro) regional studies are taken into consideration. Facing such limitation, the more
reliable assumption to anticipate, in first approximation, the impacts of climate change on
hydroelectricity, would remain in the strong nexus between variations in runoff and relating
changes in hydroelectric generation potential and/or production of installed capacity (Lehner
et al, 2005 ; Alstom, 2009).
This assumption is made on the general relation:
GP = m . g . h., where the gross
hydropower potential (GP) is defined as the product of mass of runoff (m), gravitational
acceleration (g) and elevation above sea level (h). With climate change, only the runoff
variable (m) will observe potential changes, impacts on hydroelectricity generation would
thus be encapsulated as this variation for a first approximation.

Bates et al (2008) provide a summary of IPCC finding on water issues, mostly based on 4 th
Assessment Report. They show that changes in runoff depend primarily on changes in the
volume and timing of precipitation and, crucially, whether precipitation falls as snow or rain.
Changes in evaporation also affect river flows. Studies are heavily focused towards Europe,
North America and Australia, with a small number of studies from Asia. Virtually all studies
use a catchment hydrological model driven by scenarios based on climate model simulations,
and almost all are at the catchment scale. The few global-scale studies that have been
conducted using both runoff simulated directly by climate and hydrological models show that
runoff increases in high latitudes and the wet tropics, and decreases in mid-latitudes and some
parts of the dry tropics. Figure 4 shows the change in annual runoff for 20902099 compared
with 19801999, using the SRES A1B scenario. Runoff is notably reduced in southern
Europe and increased in south-east Asia and in high latitudes, where there is consistency
among models in the sign of change (although less in the magnitude of change). Flows in
high-latitude region increases while those in the Middle East, Europe and Central America
tends to decrease. The magnitude of change, however, varies between climate models (GCM,
RCM, and ARIMA) and, in some regions such as southern Asia; runoff could either increase
or decrease.
A very robust finding is that warming would lead to changes in the seasonality of river flows
where much winter precipitation currently falls as snow, with spring flows decreasing
because of the reduced or earlier snowmelt, and winter flows increasing. This has been found
in the European Alps, Scandinavia and around the Baltic, Russia, the Himalayas, and western,
central and eastern North America. The effect is greatest at lower elevations, where snowfall
is more marginal, and in many cases peak flows by the middle of the 21st century would
occur at least a month earlier. In regions with little or no snowfall, changes in runoff are
much more dependent on changes in rainfall than on changes in temperature. Most
studies in such regions project an increase in the seasonality of flows, often with higher flows
in the peak flow season and either lower flow during the low-flow season or extended dry
periods. Many rivers draining glaciated regions, particularly in the Asian high mountain
ranges, are sustained by glacier melt during warm and dry periods. Retreat of these glaciers
due to global warming would lead to increased river flows in the short term, but the
contribution of glacier melt would gradually fall over the next few decades.

Large-scale relative changes in annual runoff for the period 20902099, relative to 19801999.
Values represent the median of 12 models using the SRES A1B scenario. White areas are
where less than 66% of the ensemble of 12 models agree on the sign of change, and hatched
areas are where more than 90% of models agree on the sign of change. (Bates et al, 2008, p.30)

More detailed regional insights and data are derived from Arnell (2003, 2004, 1999a). The
study assess the implications of climate change for regional river runoff across the world,
using six climate models used in the IPCC 3 rd Assessment Report which have been driven by
the SRES emissions scenarios. Stream flow is simulated at a 0.5 resolution using a macroscale hydrological model, and summed to produce total runoff for almost 1 200 catchments
(Arnell, 1998 ; see details in Arnell 2003, 1999).
The annual average catchment runoff is another parameter that is affected by climate change.
Approximately a third of all catchments have a substantial increase in runoff, a third has a
substantial decrease, and a third show no substantial change. By the 2050s the number with
no substantial change reduces to between 20 and 30%, and it falls to between 10 and 30% by
the 2080s. The impact of climate change can also be witnessed on the timing of flows
through the year, as well the magnitude of flows and the range between high and low flows.
But its seen that across most of the world climate change does not alter the timing of flows
through the year but, in the marginal zone between cool and mild climate, higher
temperatures mean that peak streamflow moves from spring to winter as less winter
precipitation falls as snow.
The report conducted by Warren et al. (2006) on the regional impacts of climate change prepared for the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change - and particularly the
chapter on water resources (Arnell, 2006) gives us more detailed data on percent changes in
run-off with change global mean temperature using GCMs for each sub-region.

Change in runoff as a function of variation in global mean temperature for each of the GCMs
used (Warren et al, 2006)

Maximum, medium and minimum percent change of different levels of climate change on
runoff on a regional basis (Warren et al, 2006)
AFRICA

0 - 1C

1 - 2C

2 - 3C

3 - 4C

4 - 5C

North Africa

-24

-11

-5

-43

-25

-14

-57

-36

-22

-67

-42

-23

-74

-45

-21

West Africa

-6

-2

-12

-4

-17

-5

13

-22

-7

18

-26

-8

22

South and East Africa

-8

-1

-15

-4

11

-21

-4

16

-26

-7

20

-30

-8

22

ASIA

0 - 1C

1 - 2C

2 - 3C

3 - 4C

4 - 5C

South Asia

-1

-3

13

-6

12

18

-8

15

22

-12

18

27

East Asia

-4

-8

-12

11

-15

10

15

-19

12

17

West Asia

-15

-5

26

-10

-33

-10

-36

-11

-36

-8

12

Central Asia

11

19

11

23

-3

13

22

-7

13

18

Australasia

-2

AMERICA

-5

0 - 1C

-7

1 - 2C

12

-8

2 - 3C

17

-10

3 - 4C

11

22

4 - 5C

North America

-2

-5

-9

-13

-2

-17

-5

Caribbean

-27

-4

-48

-10

-64

-15

-75

-18

-83

-20

Central America

-23

-4

-44

-9

-60

-13

11

-71

-17

-77

-20

10

South America

-15

-2

-27

-3

-38

-4

-47

-5

-53

-7

EUROPE

0 - 1C
-8

-3

1 - 2C
-1

-16

-7

2 - 3C
-3

-23

-11

3 - 4C
-6

-30

-14

4 - 5C
-8

-35

-18

-10

Potential effects of climate change on anticipated hydropower investment

The IPCC 4th report highlights the fact that use of renewable energy is critical to reducing
GHG emissions in order to limit climate change. However, the expansion of hydropower is
dependent on the availability of the resource and the perceptions of those financing it. As
mentioned earlier global warming will alter the timing and magnitude of river flows, and thus
affect the ability of hydropower stations to harness the resource, and may reduce production,
implying from an investment point of view, lower revenues and poorer returns. Its argued
that climate change is static and dynamic concept seeing the time duration. Taking climate
change as endogenous fluctuation, the future investment will decline (Nordhaus,2007).
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Effects of climate change on attractiveness and viability of hydropower

investments
Very few works have been done to quantify the potential impact of climate change on
perceived or anticipated financial performance of hydropower projects, and expected impacts
on economic viability and related choice on hydropower investments. However, there are
models to measure the price of hydropower for the next day which helps in calculating the net
profit (ARIMA, Harrison).
According to report of IEA the demand electricity is likely to rise in coming years. Its likely
that fossil-fuel prices will rise (as taxing fossil fuel will give rise to green paradox). With
the need for GHG emission-free generation the best possible option would be to switch over
to alternative sources, such hydroelectricity. Indeed, hydroelectric production, currently
supplying almost a fifth of global demand, is anticipated to increase threefold over the next
century, mostly in developing countries. However, Harrison and Whittington (2003) show
that the combination of two factors may constraint this trend: (i) Increased involvement of
private capital may not favor hydropower given that hydropower capital costs are relatively
high and payback periods longer than for fossil-fuelled plant. Despite high fossil-fuel costs,
hydroelectricity will often be disadvantaged, and not be favored by short-term orientated
investors. (ii) Many parts of the world are going to experience significant changes in climate.
Studies have indicated that variations in river flows resulting from climate change will lead to
changes in hydroelectric production. As with all generation methods, electricity sales revenue
is the only way of servicing the capital debt. If reductions in runoff and output were to lead to

reductions in revenue, this would adversely affect the return on investment and hence the
perceived attractiveness of the plant. If the magnitude of the energy production changes, this
is going to have a major impact on station revenue streams. For a given power station, if
energy output falls, the result will be higher electricity costs per unit, a lower return on
investment and also longer payback periods. To clear the debt power plants based on fossil
fuel would be set-up which will result in additional GHG emissions, thus exacerbating
climate change (Whittington and Gundry, 1998).
Hydropower offers significant potential for carbon emissions reductions. Baseline
projections of the global supply of hydropower rise from 12.8 EJ in 2009 to 13 EJ in 2020, 15
EJ in 2030 and 18 EJ in 2050 in the median case.
Steady growth in the supply of hydropower is therefore projected to occur even in the
absence of greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation policies, though demand growth is anticipated
to be even higher, resulting in a shrinking percentage share of hydropower in global
electricity supply. Evidence suggests that relatively high levels of deployment over the next
20 years are feasible, and hydropower should remain an attractive renewable energy source
within the context of global GHG mitigation scenarios. That hydropower can provide energy
and water management services and also help to manage variable renewable energy supply
may further support its continued deployment, but environmental and social impacts will
need to be carefully managed.