Accepted author manuscript, 918 KB, PDF document
Available under license: CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Final published version, 1.01 MB, PDF document
Available under license: CC BY
Final published version
Licence: CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Assessing the energy potential of modernizing the European hydropower fleet
AU - Quaranta, Emanuele
AU - Aggidis, George
AU - Boes, Robert
AU - Comoglio, Claudio
AU - De Michele, Carlo
AU - Ritesh Patro , Epari
AU - Georgievskaia, Evgeniia
AU - Harby, Atle
AU - Kougias, Ioannis
AU - Muntean, Sebastian
AU - Pérez-Díaz , Juan
AU - Romero–Gomez, Pedro
AU - Rosa-Clot, Marco
AU - Schleiss, Anton
AU - Vagnoni, Elena
AU - Wirth, Markus
AU - Pistocchi, Alberto
PY - 2021/10/15
Y1 - 2021/10/15
N2 - 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 retrofitting of HPPs can generate several benefits for production, flexibility, safety, management and environment. In this work, the benefits related to energy and flexibility were considered and quantified by conducting a large-scale assessment for the European Union and Europe, taking into account several retrofitting strategies: dam heightening, head loss reduction in waterways, increase of installed power in run-of-the-river and storage power plants, increase of annual inflow, increase of maximum efficiency and weighted efficiency of electro-mechanical equipment, start and stop improvement, digitalization and inflow forecast, floating photovoltaic and reservoir interconnection. For most of these strategies, an indicator of the additional capacity and/or annual production that could be obtained compared to the current conditions was calculated. Excluding site-specific strategies (e.g. installation of new parallel waterways, increase of withdrawals from existing intakes) the resulting compound value of the indicator is 10.2% for European Union and 12.2% for the whole Europe, plus 4-28.6 TWh achievable by interconnecting reservoirs. This suggests that the retrofitting of HPPs can generate significant benefits in terms of energy and flexibility, minimizing environmental impacts, and should be considered as an important element of both energy transition and water management policies.
AB - 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 retrofitting of HPPs can generate several benefits for production, flexibility, safety, management and environment. In this work, the benefits related to energy and flexibility were considered and quantified by conducting a large-scale assessment for the European Union and Europe, taking into account several retrofitting strategies: dam heightening, head loss reduction in waterways, increase of installed power in run-of-the-river and storage power plants, increase of annual inflow, increase of maximum efficiency and weighted efficiency of electro-mechanical equipment, start and stop improvement, digitalization and inflow forecast, floating photovoltaic and reservoir interconnection. For most of these strategies, an indicator of the additional capacity and/or annual production that could be obtained compared to the current conditions was calculated. Excluding site-specific strategies (e.g. installation of new parallel waterways, increase of withdrawals from existing intakes) the resulting compound value of the indicator is 10.2% for European Union and 12.2% for the whole Europe, plus 4-28.6 TWh achievable by interconnecting reservoirs. This suggests that the retrofitting of HPPs can generate significant benefits in terms of energy and flexibility, minimizing environmental impacts, and should be considered as an important element of both energy transition and water management policies.
KW - dam
KW - digitalization
KW - flexibility
KW - refurbishment
KW - turbine
KW - upgrade
KW - water-energy nexus
U2 - 10.1016/j.enconman.2021.114655
DO - 10.1016/j.enconman.2021.114655
M3 - Journal article
VL - 246
JO - Energy Conversion and Management
JF - Energy Conversion and Management
SN - 0196-8904
M1 - 114655
ER -