How Will Hydroelectric Power Generation Develop under Climate Change Scenarios? A Case Study in the Upper Danube Basin

Franziska Koch, Monika Prasch, Heike Bach, Wolfram Mauser, Florian Appel and Markus Weber
Additional contact information
Franziska Koch: Department of Geography, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Luisenstr. 37, Munich 80333, Germany
Monika Prasch: Department of Geography, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Luisenstr. 37, Munich 80333, Germany
Heike Bach: VISTA GmbH, Remote Sensing in Geosciences, Gabelsbergerstrasse 51, Munich 80333, Germany
Wolfram Mauser: Department of Geography, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Luisenstr. 37, Munich 80333, Germany
Florian Appel: VISTA GmbH, Remote Sensing in Geosciences, Gabelsbergerstrasse 51, Munich 80333, Germany
Markus Weber: Commission for Geodesy and Glaciology, Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Alfons-Goppel-Str. 11, Munich 80539, Germany

Energies, 2011, vol. 4, issue 10, 1-34

Abstract: Climate change has a large impact on water resources and thus on hydropower. Hydroelectric power generation is closely linked to the regional hydrological situation of a watershed and reacts sensitively to changes in water quantity and seasonality. The development of hydroelectric power generation in the Upper Danube basin was modelled for two future decades, namely 2021–2030 and 2051–2060, using a special hydropower module coupled with the physically-based hydrological model PROMET. To cover a possible range of uncertainties, 16 climate scenarios were taken as meteorological drivers which were defined from different ensemble outputs of a stochastic climate generator, based on the IPCC-SRES-A1B emission scenario and four regional climate trends. Depending on the trends, the results show a slight to severe decline in hydroelectric power generation. Whilst the mean summer values indicate a decrease, the mean winter values display an increase. To show past and future regional differences within the Upper Danube basin, three hydropower plants at individual locations were selected. Inter-annual differences originate predominately from unequal contributions of the runoff compartments rain, snow- and ice-melt.

Keywords: climate change; PROMET; hydroelectric power generation; runoff components; GLOWA-Danube; Upper Danube basin (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/4/10/1508/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/4/10/1508/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:4:y:2011:i:10:p:1508-1541:d:14214

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().