Abstract
About 50% of all hydropower plants (HPPs) worldwide were originally commissioned more than 40 years ago, so that the advanced age of the fleet is a major concern across all continents, and especially in Europe. The modernization of HPPs can generate several benefits in terms of generation, flexibility, safety, operation, and may have neutral or even positive implications for the environment. In this work, we appraise several options for the modernization of existing plants, with the exclusion of measures expected to increase the hydro-morphological pressure on water bodies (e.g. increase of withdrawals or new parallel waterways): dam heightening, head loss reduction in waterways, increase of weighted efficiency of electro-mechanical equipment, digitalization and inflow forecast, and floating photovoltaic (evaporation reduction). We provide an indicative estimation of the additional power and annual generation that could be obtained compared to the current condition. We estimate that the overall energy generation could be increased by 8.4% for European Union and 9.4% for the whole Europe by implementing the above-mentioned strategies. The additional energy gain achievable by increasing the inflow was discussed but not included in the above mentioned overall indicator, because it is very site-specific. The additional energy storage achievable by reservoir interconnection and coordinated operation has been estimated in literature as 169 TWh. This suggests that the modernization of HPPs can generate significant benefits in terms of energy, and should be considered as an important element of energy policy, also considering the additional benefits in terms of reliability and flexibility of the energy system that it may deliver. The modernization options considered here, insofar as not entailing a worsening of the hydro-morphological alterations, are also expected to cause limited or no conflict with the environmental objectives of water policies in Europe.
Highlights
In 2019, the global installed power of grid-connected hydropower (HP) reached 1308 GW, including 158 GW of pumped hydropower storage (PHS), with an annual generation of 4306 TWh [90]
We appraise several options for the modernization of existing plants, with the exclusion of measures expected to increase the hydromorphological pressure on water bodies: dam heightening, head loss reduction in waterways, increase of weighted efficiency of electro-mechanical equipment, digitalization and inflow forecast, and floating photovoltaic
We estimate that the overall energy generation could be increased by 8.4% for European Union and 9.4% for the whole Europe by implementing the above-mentioned strategies
Summary
In 2019, the global installed power of grid-connected hydropower (HP) reached 1308 GW, including 158 GW of pumped hydropower storage (PHS), with an annual generation of 4306 TWh [90]. In 2019, 15.6 GW (1.19% of the global hydropower capacity) of large hydropower (>10 MW) were added [90] and 3.6 GW were under con struction in Europe, excluding Turkey. Hydropower develop ment in Europe has been relatively slow since 2000, especially in the EU, partly due to the introduction of the Water Framework Directive 2000/ 60/EC (WFD) and more restrictive national legislation, hydropower development has not stopped [99], with a peak in 2011 of almost 10 GW of developed capacity. Reservoir hydropower plants remain an important renewable energy source, as their storage capacity enables flexibility of operation and adaptability to the grid re quirements. It is estimated that the HP installed power should grow by around 60%, with an estimated investment of US$ 1.7 trillion by 2050, generating 600,000 skilled jobs over the coming decades [90]
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