Multidimensional stress test for hydropower investments facing climate, geophysical and financial uncertainty

Abstract

Abstract Investors, developers, policy makers and engineers are rightly concerned about the potential effects of climate change on the future performance of hydropower investments. Hydroelectricity offers potentially low greenhouse-gas emission, renewable energy and reliable energy storage. However, hydroelectricity developments are large, complicated projects and possibly critically vulnerable to changes in climate and other assumptions related to future uncertainties. This paper presents a general assessment approach for evaluating the resilience of hydroelectricity projects to uncertainty in climate and other risk factors (e.g., financial, natural hazard). The process uses a decision analytic framework based on a decision scaling approach, which combines scenario neutral analysis and vulnerability-specific probability assessment. The technical evaluation process involves identification of project objectives, specification of uncertain factors, multi-dimensional sensitivity analysis, and data mining to identify vulnerability-specific scenarios and vulnerability-specific estimations of risk. The process is demonstrated with an application to a proposed hydropower facility on the Arun River in Nepal. The findings of the case study illustrate an example in which climate change is not the critical future uncertainty, and consequently highlight the importance of considering multiple uncertainties in combination.