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Climate Change Impacts on Hydropower Management

Water Resources Management volume 27, pages 5143–5156 (2013)Cite this article

Abstract

Climate change affects hydropower production by modifying total annual inflow volumes and their seasonal distribution. Moreover, increasing air temperatures impact electricity consumption and, as a consequence, electricity prices. All together, these phenomena may lead to a loss in revenue. We show that an adequate management of hydropower plants mitigates these losses. These results are obtained by resorting to an interdisciplinary approach integrating hydrology, economy and hydropower management in an interdependent quantitative model.

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Notes

  1. List of RCMs considered: ETHZ_HadCM3Q0_CLM, HC_HadCM3Q0_HadRM3Q0, SMHI_HadCM3Q3_RCA, SMHI_ECHAM_RCA, MPI_ECHAM_REMO, KNMI_ECHAM_RACMO, ICTP_ECHAM_REGCM, DMI_ECHAM_HIRHAM, CNRM_ARPEGE_ALADIN, SMHI_BCM_RCA

  2. ensembles-eu.metoffice.com

  3. www.ipcc.ch

  4. Historical air temperatures are provided by MeteoSuisse.

  5. For implementation details see Gilli et al. (2011).

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Acknowledgements

This study was carried out within the frame of the Swiss research programme 61 (www.nfp61.ch). We are grateful to the Versuchsanstalt für Wasserbau, Hydrologie und Glaziologie, in particular, Martin Funk, Andreas Bauder and Jeannette Gabbi for providing hydrological data and essential information. We also thank Force Motrices de Mauvoisin for the reservoir management data and sharing their expertise. The ENSEMBLES data used in this work was funded by the EU FP6 Integrated Project ENSEMBLES (Contract number 505539). Martin Beniston and Stephan Goyette provided valuable scientific input and Christophe Etienne and Denis Cohen proofread an earlier version of the paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Environmental Sciences, University of Geneva, Route de Drize 7, 1227, Carouge, Switzerland

    Ludovic Gaudard

  2. University of Geneva, Bd du Pont d’Arve 40, 1211, Geneva, Switzerland

    Manfred Gilli & Franco Romerio

Authors
  1. Ludovic Gaudard
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  2. Manfred Gilli
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  3. Franco Romerio
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Correspondence to Ludovic Gaudard.

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Gaudard, L., Gilli, M. & Romerio, F. Climate Change Impacts on Hydropower Management. Water Resour Manage 27, 5143–5156 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-013-0458-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-013-0458-1

Keywords

  • Climate change
  • Hydropower management
  • Electricity market
  • Switzerland