Climate change impact analysis on hydropower operations in the Lower Nelson River Basin
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Date
2020
Authors
Kim, Su Jin
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Abstract
This thesis presents an assessment of the effects of climate change in reservoir inflow and hydropower generation potential across the Lower Nelson River Basin. A hydrologic-operations model coupling framework was developed and two coupled models, WATFLOOD-MODSIM and HEC-HMS-MODSIM, were set up to simulate both basin water balance and hydropower generation. The coupled models were driven by nineteen climate simulations from CMIP5 to compute historical (1981-2010) and future (2021-2070) reservoir inflow and hydropower generation potential. This work aimed to identify changes in the annual and seasonal reservoir inflow quantity and distribution and to evaluate the likelihood of future hydropower generation exceedance (relative to a historical threshold). Results show that it is about as likely as not or unlikely to be a statistically significant trend (neither increase nor decrease) in annual and seasonal reservoir inflow and hydropower generation potential over 30-year periods on Lower Nelson River. There is a large variability in projected changes in both annual and seasonal reservoir inflow and hydropower generation potential due to dry scenarios becoming drier and wet scenarios becoming wetter over the years. Winter is identified as the season with the greatest possible reduction in reservoir inflow and hydropower generation potential and the least possible increase in the 30-year mean over time. Increases in reservoir inflow did not always translate to an increase in hydropower generation potential on the Lower Nelson River due to limits on system generation capacity for storing water. Therefore, a reduction in inflow directly translated to a reduction in hydropower generation potential, while an increase in inflow only contributed to a limited increase in hydropower generation potential.
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Keywords
Lower Nelson River Basin, Climate change, Hydropower, Model coupling, WATFLOOD, HEC-HMS, MODSIM-DSS