The changing role of hydropower: from cheap local energy supply to strategic regional resource

Jacob Snell, Daniel Prowse and Ken Adams

International Journal of Water Resources Development, 2014, vol. 30, issue 1, 121-134

Abstract: The role of hydropower has evolved from being a local, low-cost energy source to being a flexible resource offering a variety of ancillary services including regional frequency control and energy storage for large interconnected power systems. This paper explores this development as it relates to a North American midcontinent electrical power region. It reviews traditional benefits from hydropower in a thermal-power-dominated region and traditional efforts to quantity those benefits. With the challenges of integrating increasing quantities of variable generation such as wind and solar power, new benefits from hydropower have been identified and new methods to quantify those benefits have been developed. Recent results of a major study of the sub-hourly behaviour of a hydropower system in a Midwestern United States electrical market are reviewed.

Date: 2014
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DOI: 10.1080/07900627.2013.860771

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