Improving the usability of climate services for the water sector: The AQUACLEW experience

Pimentel, Rafael; Photiadou, Christiana; Little, Lorna; Huber, Andreas; Lemoine, Anthony; Leidinger, David; Lira-Loarca, Andrea; Lückenkötter, Johannes; Pastén-Zapata, Ernesto

doi:10.1016/j.cliser.2022.100329

Cited by 1 publication

(3 citation statements)

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“…The study site was the Poqueira system in Sierra Nevada (37 • N; −3.3 • W), which is a national park and biosphere reserve located in a mountainous area in southern Spain, where the presence of snow has a great effect on the hydrology of the downstream areas [8]. The contributing basin to the hydropower plants has an area of 38.4 km 2 , with an average slope of 23 • and an elevation ranging from 3453 m a.s.l.…”

Section: Study Site and Data Sourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The operation of hydroelectric power plants is subject to different conditioning factors, including the hydraulic conditions of the riverbed, the specific operating conditions of the plant's instrumentation, and certain restrictions, such as compliance with the environmental flow regime established in the corresponding legislation. One of the main drawbacks of RoR plants is the high degree of uncertainty of the available river flows upstream of the plant owing to meteorological fluctuations, resulting in an unpredictable power generation capacity [5,6], which is even more prevalent in the current climate change scenario [2,7,8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some of the main energy infrastructures affected by climate change are hydropower plants located in snow-covered mountainous areas, where climate change is expected to result in a later and shorter snow season and less snow coverage [8,9]. Mountains are considered "water towers" since they provide water for both ecosystems and anthropogenic demands in downstream areas [10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Stochastic Flow Analysis for Optimization of the Operationality in Run-of-River Hydroelectric Plants in Mountain Areas

Gómez-Beas,

Contreras,

Polo

et al. 2024

Energies

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The highly temporal variability of the hydrological response in Mediterranean areas affects the operation of hydropower systems, especially in run-of-river (RoR) plants located in mountainous areas. Here, the water flow regime strongly determines failure, defined as no operating days due to inflows below the minimum operating flow. A Bayesian dynamics stochastic model was developed with statistical modeling of both rainfall as the forcing agent and water inflows to the plants as the dependent variable using two approaches—parametric adjustments and non-parametric methods. Failure frequency analysis and its related operationality, along with their uncertainty associated with different time scales, were performed through 250 Monte Carlo stochastic replications of a 20-year period of daily rainfall. Finally, a scenario analysis was performed, including the effects of 3 and 30 days of water storage in a plant loading chamber to minimize the plant’s dependence on the river’s flow. The approach was applied to a mini-hydropower RoR plant in Poqueira (Southern Spain), located in a semi-arid Mediterranean alpine area. The results reveal that the influence of snow had greater operationality in the spring months when snowmelt was outstanding, with a 25% probability of having fewer than 2 days of failure in May and April, as opposed to 12 days in the winter months. Moreover, the effect of water storage was greater between June and November, when rainfall events are scarce, and snowmelt has almost finished with operationality levels of 0.04–0.74 for 15 days of failure without storage, which increased to 0.1–0.87 with 3 days of storage. The methodology proposed constitutes a simple and useful tool to assess uncertainty in the operationality of RoR plants in Mediterranean mountainous areas where rainfall constitutes the main source of uncertainty in river flows.

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Section: Study Site and Data Sourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%