Prioritizing climate change adaptation needs for hydropower sector in China

Abstract

Differentiating spatial–temporal hydropower risk triggered by climate change is crucial to climate adaptation and hydropower programming. In this research, we use a fixed-effect model on 5082 plants in China to estimate how the revenue of hydropower plants responded to climate change over 16 years, and project the revenue change and fit the damage function driven by 42 climate realizations. Results show that the revenue change of the hydropower sector demonstrates substantial regional variation and would reduce by 9.34% ± 1.21% (mean ± s.d.) yr−1 on average under RCP 8.5 by 2090s as compared to 2013, about four times larger than that under RCP4.5. Carbon leakage caused by thermal power substitution reaches 467.56 ± 202.63 (112.49 ± 227.45) Mt CO2e under RCP8.5 (RCP4.5). Different climatic conditions manifest locally, and different climate resilience makes the response function regionally heterogeneous. Southwest China is identified as the priority region for adaptation through integrated evaluation of historical climate sensitivity, future climate variability, and regional hydropower importance, informing more adaptation and investment needs of further hydropower development in the area.