Climate impacts on hydropower and consequences for global electricity supply investment needs

Turner, Sean; Hejazi, Mohamad; Kim, Son H.; Clarke, Leon; Edmonds, James A.

doi:10.1016/j.energy.2017.11.089

Cited by 127 publications

(75 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…We have expanded upon previous estimates of water scarcity drivers by quantifying how the coevolution of a dynamic socioeconomic system and changing climate system may alter water scarcity into the future. This has been done by using evolving and differing socioeconomic assumptions that account for changes across all sectors , Graham et al 2018, in combination with considerations for climate impacts to water availability, hydropower expansion (Turner et al 2017), agricultural productivity changes (Rosenzweig et al 2014), and building energy expenditures (Clarke et al 2018). The use of these socioeconomic and climate assumptions in GCAM allow for feedback linkages between these systems, enabling price adjustments and resultant demand changes across sectors when supplies become increasingly depleted.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Humans drive future water scarcity changes across all Shared Socioeconomic Pathways

Graham

Hejazi

Chen

et al. 2020

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Future changes in climate and socioeconomic systems will drive both the availability and use of water resources, leading to evolutions in scarcity. The contributions of both systems can be quantified individually to understand the impacts around the world, but also combined to explore how the coevolution of energy-water-land systems affects not only the driver behind water scarcity changes, but how human and climate systems interact in tandem to alter water scarcity. Here we investigate the relative contributions of climate and socioeconomic systems on water scarcity under the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways-Representative Concentration Pathways framework. While human systems dominate changes in water scarcity independent of socioeconomic or climate future, the sign of these changes depend particularly on the socioeconomic scenario. Under specific socioeconomic futures, human-driven water scarcity reductions occur in up to 44% of the global land area by the end of the century.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Humans drive future water scarcity changes across all Shared Socioeconomic Pathways

Graham

Hejazi

Chen

et al. 2020

Environ. Res. Lett.

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“…For Europe in general, this results in a total decrease of approximately −5% under the RCP 2.6 scenario and up to −20% under the RCP 8.5 scenario by 2080 [10]. Another study by Turner et al [24] finds a change in net global hydropower production by −8% to −5% under RCP 8.5 and between −4% and +4% under RCP 4.5 by the end of this century.…”

Section: Climate Change and Water Availabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Based on their global simulation, Turner et al [24] expect a decrease in Swiss hydro generation of −7.1% on average in 2050, ranging from −9.1 to −1.3% depending on the underlying emission scenario and GCM. Austria (−13.7%) is even more severely affected by projected climate change.…”

Section: Climate Change and Water Availabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In their global analysis of the impacts of climate change on hydropower and consequences for global electricity supply investment needs, Turner et al [24] add an Integrated Assessment Model to their analysis, going beyond the pure evaluation of changes in hydropower potential (as represented by total runoff). They show that in regions assumed to be adversely affected by climate change and with a large share of hydropower generation, increases of power sector emissions of up to 20% can be expected.…”

Section: Climate Change and Water Availabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Impact of Climate Change on Swiss Hydropower

et al. 2018

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Abstract:Hydropower represents an important pillar of electricity systems in many countries. It not only plays an important role in mitigating climate change, but is also subject to climate-change impacts. In this paper, we use the Swiss electricity market model Swissmod to study the effects of changes in water availability due to climate change on Swiss hydropower. Swissmod is an electricity dispatch model with a plant-level representation of 96% of Swiss hydropower plants and their interrelations within cascade structures. Using this detailed model in combination with spatially disaggregated climate-change runoff projections for Switzerland, we show that climate change has ambiguous impacts on hydropower and on the overall electricity system. Electricity prices and overall system costs increase under dry conditions and decrease under average or wet conditions. While the change of seasonal patterns, with a shift to higher winter runoff, has positive impacts, the overall yearly inflow varies under hydrological conditions. While average and wet years yield an increase in inflows and revenues, dry years become drier, resulting in the opposite effect. Even though different in magnitude, the direction of impacts persists when applying the same changes in inflows to the 2050 electricity system.

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“…Finally the analysis in this paper does not cast a wide enough net to capture the expected benefits of climate change mitigation in terms of the avoided impacts on water resources and consequently the performance of energy technologies that rely on water availability. Significant geographic diversity is anticipated, and impacts may be partially mitigated when aggregated across regions and globally [61,62]. Nonetheless, avoiding adaptation costs in the 1.5°C scenarios is expected to improve synergies with the SDG6 targets in many regions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Balancing clean water-climate change mitigation trade-offs

Parkinson

Krey

Huppmann

et al. 2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Energy systems support technical solutions fulfilling the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal for clean water and sanitation (SDG6), with implications for future energy demands and greenhouse gas emissions. The energy sector is also a large consumer of water, making water efficiency targets ingrained in SDG6 important constraints for long-term energy planning. Here, we apply a global integrated assessment model to quantify the cost and characteristics of infrastructure pathways balancing SDG6 targets for water access, scarcity, treatment and efficiency with long-term energy transformations limiting climate warming to 1.5°C. Under a mid-range human development scenario, we find that approximately 1 trillion USD2010 per year is required to close water infrastructure gaps and operate water systems consistent with achieving SDG6 goals by 2030. Adding a 1.5°C climate policy constraint increases these costs by up to 8%. In the reverse direction, when the SDG6 targets are added on top of the 1.5°C policy constraint, the cost to transform and operate energy systems increases 2%-9% relative to a baseline 1.5°C scenario that does not achieve the SDG6 targets by 2030. Cost increases in the SDG6 pathways are due to expanded use of energy-intensive water treatment and costs associated with water conservation measures in power generation, municipal, manufacturing and agricultural sectors. Combined global spending (capital and operational expenditures) to 2030 on water, energy and land systems increases 92%-125% in the integrated SDG6-1.5°C scenarios relative to a baseline 'no policy' scenario. Evaluation of the multi-sectoral policies underscores the importance of water conservation and integrated water-energy planning for avoiding costs from interacting water, energy and climate goals.

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Climate impacts on hydropower and consequences for global electricity supply investment needs

Cited by 127 publications

References 42 publications

Humans drive future water scarcity changes across all Shared Socioeconomic Pathways

Humans drive future water scarcity changes across all Shared Socioeconomic Pathways

The Impact of Climate Change on Swiss Hydropower

Balancing clean water-climate change mitigation trade-offs

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