Hydropower Production Benefits More From 1.5 °C than 2 °C Climate ScenarioShow others and affiliations
2020 (English)In: Water resources research, ISSN 0043-1397, E-ISSN 1944-7973, Vol. 56, no 5, article id e2019WR025519Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Hydropower plays an important role as renewable and clean energy in the world's overall energy supply. Electricity generation from hydropower represented approximately 16.6% of the world's total electricity and 70% of all renewable electricity in 2015. Determining the different effects of 1.5 and 2 °C of global warming has become a hot spot in water resources research. However, there are still few studies on the impacts of different global warming levels on gross hydropower potential. This study used a coupled hydrological and techno-economic model framework to assess hydropower production under global warming levels of 1.5 and 2 °C, while also considering gross hydropower potential, power consumption, and economic factors. The results show that both global warming levels will have a positive impact on the hydropower production of a tropical island (Sumatra) relative to the historical period; however, the ratio of hydropower production versus power demand provided by 1.5 °C of global warming is 40% higher than that provided by 2 °C of global warming under RCP6.0. The power generation by hydropower plants shows incongruous changing trends with hydropower potential under the same global warming levels. This inconformity occurs because the optimal sites for hydropower plants were chosen by considering not only hydropower potential but also economic factors. In addition, the reduction in CO2 emissions under global warming of 1.5 °C (39.06 × 106 t) is greater than that under global warming of 2 °C (10.20 × 106 t), which reveals that global warming decreases the benefits necessary to relieve global warming levels. However, the hydropower generation and the reduction in CO2 emissions will be far less than the energy demand when protected areas are excluded as potential sites for hydropower plants, with a sharp decrease of 40–80%. Thus, government policy-makers should consider the trade-off between hydropower generation and forest coverage area in nationally determined contributions. © 2020 The Authors.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Blackwell Publishing Ltd , 2020. Vol. 56, no 5, article id e2019WR025519
Keywords [en]
global warming, hydropower;hydro-economic modeling, ISIMIP, optimization model, PCR-GLOBWB, protected areas, Carbon dioxide, Conservation, Economic and social effects, Electric power utilization, Hydroelectric power, Water resources, Climate scenarios, Electricity generation, Historical periods, Hydro power production, Hydro-power generation, Hydropower potential, Renewable electricity, Techno-economic model, Hydroelectric power plants, alternative energy, climate change, energy planning, energy use, hydroelectric power plant, power generation, trade-off, Greater Sunda Islands, Sumatra, Sunda Isles
National Category
Natural Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-45089DOI: 10.1029/2019WR025519Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85085485819OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ri-45089DiVA, id: diva2:1449593
Note
Funding details: Southern University of Science and Technology, SUSTech, G02296402, G02296302; Funding details: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, IIASA; Funding details: National Natural Science Foundation of China, NSFC, 51711520317, 41811540346, 41571022, 41625001; Funding details: State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Sources and Control of Air Pollution Complex; Funding details: Chinese Academy of Sciences, CAS, XDA20060402; Funding details: Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Environmental Pollution Control and Remediation Technology, 2017B030301012; Funding details: National Natural Science Foundation of China, NSFC; Funding text 1: This work was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA20060402), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (Grant No. 41625001, 51711520317, 41571022 and 41811540346). Part of the research was developed in the Young Scientists Summer Program at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg (Austria). The discharge data provided by the ISIMIP can be found from https://www.isimip.org/. Additional support was provided by the High-level Special Funding of the Southern University of Science and Technology (Grant No. G02296302, G02296402), the State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Integrated Surface Water-Groundwater Pollution Control, and the Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Soil and Groundwater Pollution Control (Grant No. 2017B030301012).
2020-06-302020-06-302023-04-05Bibliographically approved