Development of a geo-information system embedding a spatially distributed hydrological model for the preliminary assessment of the hydropower potential of historical hydro sites in poorly gauged areas

Soulis, Konstantinos X.; Manolakos, Dimitris; Anagnostopoulos, John S.; Papantonis, Dimitris

doi:10.1016/j.renene.2016.02.013

Cited by 21 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…There is a significant number of studies that assess the potential of hydropower using GIS based approaches [31,[34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47]. The majority of these studies however, are focused on a particular hydrological unit (basin, sub-basin) or on a country level.…”

Section: Scope Of the Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition to that, the addition of a geo-spatial component in such assessments can help answering questions regarding proper site selection and lead to better allocation of (usually) scarce financial resources.Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and modern remote sensing techniques convey useful information that can add significant value in hydropower assessments. Their integration can provide useful insights to policy makers and developers regarding the future deployment and spatial distribution of distributed generation systems, including among them new hydropower plants [20].There is a significant number of studies that assess the potential of hydropower using GIS based approaches [31,[34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47]. The majority of these studies however, are focused on a particular hydrological unit (basin, sub-basin) or on a country level.…”

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confidence: 99%

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A Geospatial Assessment of Small-Scale Hydropower Potential in Sub-Saharan Africa

et al. 2018

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Sub-Saharan Africa has been at the epicenter of an ongoing global dialogue around the issue of energy poverty. More than half of the world's population without access to modern energy services lives there. It also happens to be a sub-continent with plentiful renewable energy resource potential. Hydropower is one of them, and to a large extent it remains untapped. This study focuses on the technical assessment of small-scale hydropower (0.01-10 MW) in Sub-Saharan Africa. The underlying methodology was based on open source geospatial datasets, whose combination allowed a consistent evaluation of 712,615 km of river network spanning over 44 countries. Environmental, topological, and social constraints were included in the form of constraints in the optimization algorithm. The results are presented on a country and power pool basis.Energies 2018, 11, 3100 of 21Recent studies indicate that the decentralization (typically of a scale less than 10 MW) of energy systems can help in addressing energy poverty [9][10][11][12][13][14]. Off-grid or mini-grid systems can be a viable near-term alternative to grid extension in many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa [15]. The prospect for decentralized energy supplies are further enhanced by the continent's abundant renewable resources. Further, the local employment is developed for deployment and maintenance of local renewable electricity generating equipment [5]. A cornerstone in the movement towards renewables is hydropower [16,17]. Role of HydropowerHydropower is a technically mature and economically competitive renewable energy source that can provide significant advantages in the operations and stability of energy systems [16]. Across Africa, hydropower is responsible for 74.2% of all non-fossil fuel electricity use [18]. In 2017 the total installed hydropower capacity in Africa was 35.34 GW [16], producing approximately 131 TWh of electricity; hydropower accounts for about 21% of the total installed capacity in the continent [16,18,19]. Focusing on Sub-Saharan Africa, the installed hydropower capacity (as in 2017) was estimated at 30.4 GW [16]. Despite this, around 92% of the 300 GW potential still remains untapped [20].The opportunities for expanding hydropower are considerable and could help support electricity provision in remote African communities, especially when developed in a small, decentralized scale [21,22]. Given favorable hydrological conditions, hydropower offers a relatively low levelized cost, continuous generation without storage requirements, and the ability to operate both in isolated or interconnected (to a national grid) mode [23]. It is estimated that the installed capacity of small-scale hydropower (below 10 MW) in Sub-Saharan Africa surpasses 476 MW [24,25].According to [21,24], the small-scale hydropower resource potential in the region is estimated at 12,197 MW, with the eastern part of the continent showing the highest potential. Szabo et al. [9] consider small-scale hydro as a very suitable option for rural electrification in Africa, showing high poten...

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Section: Scope Of the Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

A Geospatial Assessment of Small-Scale Hydropower Potential in Sub-Saharan Africa

et al. 2018

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“…In most similar applications the preferred spatial interpolation method is the kriging method [27,28,[45][46][47][48] and this method is also proposed by the EC [19]. Especially for the case of Greece, which is characterized by vast spatial variability of P mainly due to its steep relief [26,[34][35][36], the cokriging method may help to overcome the limitations posed by the meteorological stations density and the underrepresentation of higher elevations as most meteorological stations are located at lower altitudes. The cokriging method utilizes the covariance between two or more regionalized variables that are related to provide improved results when the main attribute of interest (e.g., precipitation) is sparse, but related with secondary information (e.g., elevation) which is abundant.…”

Section: Spatial Interpolationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The density of meteorological stations is 1 station per 950 km 2 and it can be considered adequate according to the international standards. However, Greece is characterized by a vast spatial variability of meteorological conditions in contrast to the relatively small size of the country (e.g., the annual precipitation depth ranges from well above 2000 mm/year at the higher elevation at the northwest to well below 500 mm/year at the southeast of the country [26,36]), which can be attributed to its steep relief including a massive sierra with a north-south direction dividing the mainland of the country, as well as its very long shoreline (Figure 1). Accordingly, possible limitations could be the variability of meteorological stations density across the country and the underrepresentation of higher elevations as most meteorological stations are located at lower altitudes (Figure 1).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Delimitation of Agricultural Areas with Natural Constraints in Greece: Assessment of the Dryness Climatic Criterion Using Geostatistics

2018

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The Less Favored Areas (LFAs) scheme has existed in various forms since 1975 and it is a broad mechanism supporting rural development in agricultural areas with natural constraints (ANC). Within the programme period 2014-2020, the European Commission developed a common set of biophysical criteria (soil, climate, and terrain) to meet the requirement for a robust and harmonized approach of delimiting ANC throughout the EU Member States. Soil and terrain criteria can be derived directly from soil maps using geospatial analysis techniques based on the provided guidelines. However, the assessment of climatic criteria can be challenging especially in regions characterized by increased spatial variability and data scarcity. In this paper, the assessment of the dryness climatic criterion in a data-scarce region (Greece) as well as the challenges, limitations, and solutions are presented. Daily data-series from 140 meteorological stations for a 30-year reference period were analyzed and the spatial distribution of the precipitation and the potential evapotranspiration for each year were estimated in order to make the final assessment of the dryness criterion. Climate variability and the presence of trends were investigated as well. The obtained results indicated that most of the utilized agricultural area is affected by dryness due to a combination of low precipitation and high evapotranspiration rates. The extreme spatial variability especially in precipitation was also highlighted. An important temporal variability was observed as well, including indications of decreasing trends in precipitation and aridity index. Climate variability and possible trends should be investigated in more detail using longer time series in order to evaluate their impact in agricultural production.

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“…Kougias et al [21] proposed a method to optimize the complementarity between SHP and PV by alternating the azimuth and tilt of the PV panel installation and their case study indicated that a compromise of 10% PV output may lead to a significant increase (66.4%) in complementarity. Since most SHPs are located on small tributaries that are often ungauged [22], prediction methods are used to forecast the complementarity between SHP and PV. François et al [23] tested two prediction methods and denoted that, in snowmelt-driven rivers, the index method performs better while the hydrological model performs better in rainfall-driven rivers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Model and Analysis of Integrating Wind and PV Power in Remote and Core Areas with Small Hydropower and Pumped Hydropower Storage

Wang

Chen

et al. 2018

Energies

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Small hydropower (SHP) and pumped hydropower storage (PHS) are ideal members of power systems with regard to integrating intermittent power production from wind and PV facilities in modern power systems using the high penetration of renewable energy. Due to the limited capacity of SHP and the geographic restrictions of PHS, these power sources have not been adequately utilized in multi-energy integration. On the one hand, rapidly increasing wind/PV power is mostly situated in remote areas (i.e., mountain and rural areas) and is delivered to core areas (i.e., manufacturing bases and cities) for environmental protection and economic profit. On the other hand, SHP is commonly dispersed in remote areas and PHS is usually located in core areas. This paper proposes a strategy to take advantage of the distribution and regulation features of these renewable energy sources by presenting two models, which includes a remote power system model to explore the potential of SHP to smooth the short-term fluctuations in wind and PV power by minimizing output fluctuations as well as a core power system model to employ PHS to shift the surplus power to the peak period by maximizing the income from selling regenerated power and minimizing output fluctuations.In the proposed first model, the cooperative regulation not only dispatches SHP with a reciprocal output shape to the wind/PV output to smooth the fluctuations but also operates the reservoir with the scheduled total power production by adjusting its output in parallel. The results of a case study based on a municipal power system in Southwestern China show that, with the proposed method, SHP can successfully smooth the short-term fluctuations in wind and PV power without influencing the daily total power production. Additionally, SHP can replace the thermal power production with renewable power production, smooth the thermal output, and further reduce the operation costs of thermal power. By storing the surplus power in the upper reservoir and regenerating the power during the peak period, PHS can obtain not only the economic benefit of selling the power at high prices but also the environmental benefit of replacing non-renewable power with renewable power. This study provides a feasible approach to explore the potential of SHP and PHS in multi-energy integration applications.Energies 2018, 11, 3459 4 of 24 hourly hydropower output process is a reciprocal process to the output of wind/PV power, but its total daily amount of power production does not meet the schedule.Step 2: Calculate the generation amount gap, E gap , between the scheduled total daily generation amount (E schedule ) and E generated . E gap = | E generated − E schedule |.Step 3: If E generated is larger than E schedule , then they uniformly decrease the hydropower output process (bound by the minimum output, as shown in Figure 2). Otherwise, they uniformly increase the hydropower output (bound by the maximum output, as shown in Figure 3).Step 4: Calculate E generated and E gap with the adjusted process obtained...

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Development of a geo-information system embedding a spatially distributed hydrological model for the preliminary assessment of the hydropower potential of historical hydro sites in poorly gauged areas

Cited by 21 publications

References 30 publications

A Geospatial Assessment of Small-Scale Hydropower Potential in Sub-Saharan Africa

A Geospatial Assessment of Small-Scale Hydropower Potential in Sub-Saharan Africa

Delimitation of Agricultural Areas with Natural Constraints in Greece: Assessment of the Dryness Climatic Criterion Using Geostatistics

Model and Analysis of Integrating Wind and PV Power in Remote and Core Areas with Small Hydropower and Pumped Hydropower Storage

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