Hug Peter, Dorothea

Schaefli, Bettina

Wechsler, Tobias

Zappa, Massimiliano

English

Bern Open Repository and Information System (BORIS)

source: https://doi.org/10.48350/181099 | downloaded: 15.5.2023EGU22-4726, updated on 30 Mar 2023https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-4726EGU General Assembly 2022© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed underthe Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.Climate change impacts on Alpine hydropower in the context ofenvironmental impacts and technical constraintsTobias Wechsler1,2, Dorothea Hug Peter1, Massimiliano Zappa1, and Bettina Schaefli21Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, Zürcherstrasse 111, 8903 Birmensdorf, Switzerland2Institute of Geography (GIUB) and Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research (OCCR) University of Bern, Hallerstrasse12, 3012 Bern, SwitzerlandHydropower production affects different stakeholders, levels of administration and ecosystems,which makes the question of its sustainability complex. Hydropower delivers energy, storagecapacity, jobs, economic value, but also involves altered streamflow, water temperature andsediment transport conditions, fractioning of aquatic habitats and modification of the landscape.Thus, an increasing demand for renewable and climate friendly energy from hydropower alsoresults in more pressure on aquatic habitats, thereby potentially calling into question itssustainability.In this work, we compare climate change impacts on the future energy production of 21hydropower plants in Switzerland, to impacts related to environmental flow requirements and tosite-specific technical optimisation potential. The simulation-based study corresponds to threefuture periods (2020–2049, 2045–2074 and 2070–2099) under three emission scenarios (RCP2.6,RCP4.5, RCP8.5), assuming unchanged environmental flow requirements and installed machinery.The results show an increase of winter production and a decrease of summer production, which inconjunction leads to an annual decrease. The simulated impacts strongly depend on the elevationand the plant-specific characteristics. The climate induced changes in production are of a similarorder of magnitude as the production loss due to environmental flow requirements and theincrease potential due to technical optimisations. A key result is that the climate induced reductionis not linearly related to the underlying streamflow reduction, but is modulated by environmentalflow requirements, the design discharge and streamflow projections. Taken a step further, achange in production does not necessarily mean a linear change in financial revenue. The Water-Energy Nexus in terms of hydropower concerns more than just a m3s-1–kWh relationship: it is partof a complex framework that is namely sensitive to legal adjustments and to long lasting technicaldecisions taken in the past.Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Climate change impacts on Alpine hydropower in the context of environmental impacts and technical constraints

https://boris.unibe.ch/181099/1/EGU22-4726-print.pdf

Climate change impacts on Alpine hydropower in the context of environmental impacts and technical constraints

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