Abstract
The global energy system changes towards renewables-dominated and liberalized markets. This requires making novel trade-offs between the profitable development of hydropower and its environmental effects on the natural flow regime. Here, we used a pristine river as a model for how these future changes will affect the natural flow regime and identify future changes on previously overlooked levels. We found that damming and discharging based on market prices leads to first- and second-level deviation from natural flows. Beyond these effects, we identified a third level of distance from natural flow. This third level is created by the transition towards a renewables-dominated energy system. The volatile energy input from renewables incentivizes hydropower plant operators to discharge based on more flexible trading behavior. We conclude that novel economic models be combined with tailored implementations of environmental flows. This will allow to find novel solutions for the trade-off between market liberalization and sustainable hydropower development.
Highlights
Hydropower and sustainable developmentAs the world accelerates towards a new energy system dominated by carbon-free renewable energies, novel challenges emerge
Our testbed was located in Europe, the processes are relevant to the global hydropower development: with major dam projects, such as the Grand Ethiopian Reservoir Dam, receiving increasing backlash [48], there is a growing trend towards developing small, decentralized, carbon-free energy sources [26, 28]
That existing hydropower licenses already frequently have flow requirements that limit operational flexibility of hydropower plants to respond to the grid
Summary
As the world accelerates towards a new energy system dominated by carbon-free renewable energies, novel challenges emerge. These challenges need to be tackled to ensure a sustainable development of our energy supply. The anthropogenic discharge dynamics are a major threat to the functioning of natural rivers and wetlands [2] (Fig 1). This functioning relies on the dynamic nature of a natural flow regime [3, 4]. About half of the global river volume is impacted by fragmentation and flow regulation due to hydropower usage [6].
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