Water-Energy Nexus for an Italian Storage Hydropower Plant under Multiple Drivers

Abstract

Climate change has repercussions on the management of water resources. Particularly, changes in precipitation and temperature impact hydropower generation and revenue by affecting seasonal electricity prices and streamflow. This issue exemplifies the impact of climate change on the water-energy-nexus, which has raised serious concern. This paper investigates the impact of climate change on hydropower with a multidisciplinary approach. A holistic perspective should be favored as the issue is complex, consequently, we chose to investigate a specific case study in Italy. It allows grasping the details, which matters in mountainous area. We integrated a hydrological model, hydropower management model, nine climate scenarios, and five electricity scenarios for a specific storage hydropower plant. Independently from the scenarios, the results show a glacier volume shrinkage upward of 40% by 2031 and minimum of 50% by 2046. The reservoir mitigates losses of revenue that reach 8% in the worst case, however, are lower compared with run-of-the-river configuration. Changes in price seasonality amplitude also determine modifications in revenues, while temporal shifts appear to be ineffective. For run-of-the-river, any variation in hydrological cycle immediately translates into revenue. Comparing the results of all future scenarios with the base scenario, it can be concluded that an increase in temperature will slightly improve the performances of hydropower.

The Water–Energy–Food Nexus in European Countries: A Review and Future Perspectives

“…Most of the nexus studies focused on the WE and WEF nexus, accounting for 39% each and, therefore, suggesting that in different countries nexus studies are mainly focused on the interlinkage between water and energy sectors. For example, in Italy and Spain, the majority of nexus research were focused on energy production, and the nexus was applied with two pillars as the WE nexus, such as in [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]. The WE nexus is important since electricity fuel production relies on non-sustainable water resources [29].…”

Assessment of current reservoir sedimentation rate and storage capacity loss: An Italian overview

“…In a climate change context, the issue of sedimentation becomes more crucial, because climate change can lead to modifications in glacier volume and area, resulting in exposure to frozen soils, which in turn, increases the rate of erosion from those areas (Hallet et al, 1996;Leeder et al, 1998). A decrease in the water storage volume of a reservoir will have direct economic consequences on the revenue due to a loss in regulation capability (see Bonato et al, 2019;Gaudard et al, 2018;Patro et al, 2018 for the case of hydropower). For this reason, it is important to analyze the current situation and foresee future scenarios to determine possible impacts on dam operations and their adaptation to the issue of reservoir sedimentation.…”