Renewable energy alternatives to mega hydropower: a case study of Inga 3 for Southern Africa

Deshmukh, Ranjit; Mileva, Ana; Wu, Grace C.

doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aabf60

Cited by 25 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Also, open questions remain on the continental impact of potential (including climateinduced) generation disruptions at such large-scale projects. With regards to the issue, Deshmukh et al (2018) assess the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of RE alternatives to the Inga 3 scheme. They find that under most scenarios, the hydropower project would be comparatively more costly than a mix of wind, solar PV, and some natural gas to meet future demand.…”

Section: Literature Review Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Hydropower dependency and climate change in sub-Saharan Africa: A nexus framework and evidence-based review

Falchetta

Gernaat

Hunt

et al. 2019

Preprint

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In sub-Saharan Africa, 160 million grid-connected electricity consumers live in countries where hydropower accounts for over 50% of total power supply. A warmer climate with more frequent and intense extremes could result in supply reliability issues. Here, (i) a robust framework to highlight the interdependencies between hydropower, water availability, and climate change is proposed, (ii) the state-of-the art literature on the projected impacts of climate change on hydropower in sub-Saharan Africa is reviewed, and (iii) supporting evidence on past trends and current pathways of power mix diversification, drought incidence, and climate change projections is provided. We find that only few countries have pursued a diversification strategy away from hydropower over the last three decades, while others' expansion plans will reinforce the dependency. This will occur irrespective of the fact that some of the largest river basins have experienced a significant drying during the last century. Agreement is found on likely positive impacts of climate change on East Africa's hydropower potential, negative impacts in West and Southern Africa, and substantial uncertainty in Central Africa. Irrespective of the absolute change in gross technical potential, more frequent and intense extremes are projected. One possible paradigm to increase resilience and fulfil the pledges of the Paris Agreement is a synergetic planning and management of hydropower and variable renewables.

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Section: Literature Review Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This could prevent a significant share of the uptake of gas and coal-fired thermal plants. The approach could also reduce the need for very large-scale hydropower schemes (Deshmukh et al, 2018), which often are associated with substantial environmental and social impact.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hydropower dependency and climate change in sub-Saharan Africa: A nexus framework and evidence-based review

Falchetta

Gernaat

Hunt

et al. 2019

Preprint

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“…To simulate power system operations under economic dispatch, we obtain power grid information from the SWITCH-China model and use the GridPath model to determine hourly electricity generation at each power plant for the year 2020. 39,[41][42][43] GridPath is a versatile platform to conduct analyses related to power system planning and we use the production-cost approach in this work, which includes detailed operational constraints and minimizes system costs for a speci ed power system. 39 In the power system optimization model, every province in mainland China is treated as a load zone, except for Inner Mongolia which is divided into West Inner Mongolia and East Mongolia.…”

Section: Power System Operations In Chinamentioning

confidence: 99%

The health and climate benefits of economic dispatch in China’s power system

Luo¹,

Garcia–Menendez

Yang

et al. 2022

Preprint

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China’s power system is highly regulated and uses an “equal-share" dispatch approach. However, market mechanisms are being introduced to reduce generation costs and improve system reliability. Here, we quantify the climate and human health impacts brought about by this transition, modeling China’s power system operations under economic dispatch. We find that significant reductions in mortality related to air pollution (11%) and CO2 emissions (3%) from the power sector can be attained by economic dispatch, relative to the equal-share approach, through more efficient coal-powered generation. Additional health and climate benefits can be achieved by incorporating emission externalities in electricity generation costs. However, the benefits of the transition to economic dispatch will be unevenly distributed across China and may lead to increased health damages in some regions. Our results show the potential of dispatch decision-making in electricity generation to mitigate negative impacts of power plant emissions with existing facilities in China.

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“…Today, hydropower is just one of many options. Covering several square kilometres of land with photovoltaic solar panels or hundreds of wind turbines can produce the same amount of power as a large dam 5,6 at a similar cost. Solar-and wind-energy companies already offer electricity prices of around $0.05 per kilowatt hour (kWh -1 ).…”

Section: Changing Energy Landscapementioning

confidence: 99%

Deploy diverse renewables to save tropical rivers

Schmitt¹,

Kittner²,

Kondolf³

et al. 2019

Nature

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emand for clean energy is soaring across developing nations in Africa, South America and southeast Asia. Governments from Myanmar to Brazil face hard decisions. Should they invest billions of dollars in tried-and-tested hydropower, damming yet more rivers to generate electricity? Or should they spend on emerging solar, wind and energy-storage technologies, the costs of which have plummeted in the past decade? Many emerging economies are planning to increase their hydropower generation. For example, Cambodia is considering spending US$5 billion-almost one-quarter of its gross domestic product-on building the Sambor dam on the Mekong River. Should it go ahead, the dam could generate 11,000 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity each year, a big jump from the 7,000 GWh the country generated in 2017. But a surge of dam development across the tropics threatens to interrupt the planet's last free-flowing rivers 1-including the Mekong, Congo, Amazon and Irrawaddy. The lives of millions of people and many species depend on these rivers 2. The projects address important energy needs, but advocates often overestimate economic benefits and underestimate the far-reaching effects on biodiversity and important fisheries. Powerful analytical tools and highresolution environmental data can clarify trade-offs between engineering and environmental goals, and can enable governments and funding institutions to compare many alternative scenarios for dam building and expansion of renewable energy. The proposed Sambor dam, for example, would prevent fish from migrating, threatening fisheries worth billions of dollars 3. It would further cut the supply of sediment to Deploy diverse renewables to save tropical rivers A strategic mix of solar, wind and storage technologies around river basins would be safer and cheaper than building large dams, argue Rafael J. P. Schmitt, Noah Kittner and colleagues. A microhydro turbine on the Nam Ou River in Laos generates electricity for nearby villages.

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Renewable energy alternatives to mega hydropower: a case study of Inga 3 for Southern Africa

Cited by 25 publications

References 22 publications

Hydropower dependency and climate change in sub-Saharan Africa: A nexus framework and evidence-based review

Hydropower dependency and climate change in sub-Saharan Africa: A nexus framework and evidence-based review

The health and climate benefits of economic dispatch in China’s power system

Deploy diverse renewables to save tropical rivers

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