Search

Abstract This work analyzes the impacts of climate change in the revenues of hydropower plants. One important input for designing and evaluating investment opportunities in hydropower is the water inflows historical data. Unfortunately, the use of such information alone may not project well the future power generation due to the influence of climate change in the water inflow patterns. This paper introduces spatio-temporal information of the future climate into the operational planning of the Brazilian hydropower system. Global climate models from IPCC are considered along with downscaled regional climate models. Our results at the individual hydro plant level show the importance of taking into account climate change information when performing hydro generation planning studies. Highlights • We present a new framework to evaluate climate change impacts in hydropower plants. • An interaction among regional climate, water inflows modeling, and optimization dispatch models is showed. • Relevant results for distinct configurations of the Brazilian system are presented. • This paper can help to support decision-making regarding investments in new hydro plants. • This multidisciplinary research provides guidance for future planning of the generation system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past few years, there has been a growing global consensus related to the importance of renewable energy to minimize the emission of greenhouse gases. The solution is an increase in the number of renewable power plants but unfortunately, this leads to a high dependence on climate variables which are already affected by climate change. Brazil is one of the largest producers of electricity by renewables through its hydro-dominant power generation system. However, hydro-generation depends on water inflows that are directly affected by climate change that consequently affect the electricity production. Therefore, these changes need to be considered in the operation and planning of a hydro-dominant power system. In this paper, we present the effects of different climate scenarios in the water inflows produced by the regional Eta climate model. Normally, studies use an optimization model to make decisions in case of a hydro-thermal scheduling problem and use the assured energy to evaluate the hydro-production. In this analysis, water inflows used in the optimization process consider different trends according to its associated climate scenario. Our paper shows that climate change may drastically impact the system assured energy and consequently, the system's capability to supply load. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]