IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0236730.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Environmental flows or economic woes—Hydropower under global energy market changes

Author

Listed:
  • Moritz Schillinger
  • Hannes Weigt
  • Philipp Emanuel Hirsch

Abstract

The global energy system changes towards renewables-dominated and liberalized markets. This requires making novel trade-offs between the profitable development of hydropower and its environmental effects on the natural flow regime. Here, we used a pristine river as a model for how these future changes will affect the natural flow regime and identify future changes on previously overlooked levels. We found that damming and discharging based on market prices leads to first- and second-level deviation from natural flows. Beyond these effects, we identified a third level of distance from natural flow. This third level is created by the transition towards a renewables-dominated energy system. The volatile energy input from renewables incentivizes hydropower plant operators to discharge based on more flexible trading behavior. We conclude that novel economic models be combined with tailored implementations of environmental flows. This will allow to find novel solutions for the trade-off between market liberalization and sustainable hydropower development.

Suggested Citation

  • Moritz Schillinger & Hannes Weigt & Philipp Emanuel Hirsch, 2020. "Environmental flows or economic woes—Hydropower under global energy market changes," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(8), pages 1-19, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0236730
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0236730
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0236730
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0236730&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0236730?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dmitrii Bogdanov & Javier Farfan & Kristina Sadovskaia & Arman Aghahosseini & Michael Child & Ashish Gulagi & Ayobami Solomon Oyewo & Larissa Souza Noel Simas Barbosa & Christian Breyer, 2019. "Radical transformation pathway towards sustainable electricity via evolutionary steps," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 10(1), pages 1-16, December.
    2. Catherine Mitchell, 2016. "Momentum is increasing towards a flexible electricity system based on renewables," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 1(2), pages 1-6, February.
    3. Ingmar Schlecht & Hannes Weigt, 2015. "Linking Europe: The Role of the Swiss Electricity Transmission Grid until 2050," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 151(II), pages 39-79, June.
    4. Barry, Michael & Baur, Patrick & Gaudard, Ludovic & Giuliani, Gianluca & Hediger, Werner & Romerio, Franco & Schillinger, Moritz & Schumann, René & Voegeli, Gillaume & Weigt, Hannes, 2015. "The Future of Swiss Hydropower A Review on Drivers and Uncertainties," Working papers 2015/11, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    5. David E. H. J. Gernaat & Patrick W. Bogaart & Detlef P. van Vuuren & Hester Biemans & Robin Niessink, 2017. "High-resolution assessment of global technical and economic hydropower potential," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 2(10), pages 821-828, October.
    6. Rintamäki, Tuomas & Siddiqui, Afzal S. & Salo, Ahti, 2016. "How much is enough? Optimal support payments in a renewable-rich power system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 117(P1), pages 300-313.
    7. Rojanamon, Pannathat & Chaisomphob, Taweep & Bureekul, Thawilwadee, 2009. "Application of geographical information system to site selection of small run-of-river hydropower project by considering engineering/economic/environmental criteria and social impact," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 13(9), pages 2336-2348, December.
    8. Schillinger, Moritz & Weigt, Hannes & Barry, Michael & Schumann, René, 2017. "Hydropower Operation in a Changing Market Environment A Swiss Case Study," Working papers 2017/19, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    9. Jochen Markard, 2018. "The next phase of the energy transition and its implications for research and policy," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 3(8), pages 628-633, August.
    10. Philipp Emanuel Hirsch & Moritz Schillinger & Katharina Appoloni & Patricia Burkhardt-Holm & Hannes Weigt, 2016. "Integrating Economic and Ecological Benchmarking for a Sustainable Development of Hydropower," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(9), pages 1-20, August.
    11. Streimikiene, Dalia & Siksnelyte, Indre, 2016. "Sustainability assessment of electricity market models in selected developed world countries," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 72-82.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kuriqi, Alban & Pinheiro, António N. & Sordo-Ward, Alvaro & Bejarano, María D. & Garrote, Luis, 2021. "Ecological impacts of run-of-river hydropower plants—Current status and future prospects on the brink of energy transition," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Oyewo, Ayobami Solomon & Solomon, A.A. & Bogdanov, Dmitrii & Aghahosseini, Arman & Mensah, Theophilus Nii Odai & Ram, Manish & Breyer, Christian, 2021. "Just transition towards defossilised energy systems for developing economies: A case study of Ethiopia," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 346-365.
    2. Dierk Bauknecht & Allan Dahl Andersen & Karoline Dunne, 2020. "Challenges for electricity network governance in Energy transitions: Insights from Norway," Working Papers on Innovation Studies 20200115, Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo.
    3. Barry, Michael & Betz, Regina & Fuchs, Sandro & Gaudard, Ludovic & Geissmann, Thomas & Giuliani, Gianluca & Hediger, Werner & Herter, Marc & Kosch, Mirjam & Romerio, Franco & Schillinger, Moritz & Sch, 2019. "The Future of Swiss Hydropower Realities, Options and Open Questions," Working papers 2019/08, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    4. Tamm, Ottar & Tamm, Toomas, 2020. "Verification of a robust method for sizing and siting the small hydropower run-of-river plant potential by using GIS," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 153-159.
    5. Yang, Weijia & Norrlund, Per & Chung, Chi Yung & Yang, Jiandong & Lundin, Urban, 2018. "Eigen-analysis of hydraulic-mechanical-electrical coupling mechanism for small signal stability of hydropower plant," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 1014-1025.
    6. Lu, Bin & Blakers, Andrew & Stocks, Matthew & Cheng, Cheng & Nadolny, Anna, 2021. "A zero-carbon, reliable and affordable energy future in Australia," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).
    7. Bogdanov, Dmitrii & Ram, Manish & Aghahosseini, Arman & Gulagi, Ashish & Oyewo, Ayobami Solomon & Child, Michael & Caldera, Upeksha & Sadovskaia, Kristina & Farfan, Javier & De Souza Noel Simas Barbos, 2021. "Low-cost renewable electricity as the key driver of the global energy transition towards sustainability," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 227(C).
    8. Osorio-Aravena, Juan Carlos & Aghahosseini, Arman & Bogdanov, Dmitrii & Caldera, Upeksha & Ghorbani, Narges & Mensah, Theophilus Nii Odai & Khalili, Siavash & Muñoz-Cerón, Emilio & Breyer, Christian, 2021. "The impact of renewable energy and sector coupling on the pathway towards a sustainable energy system in Chile," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    9. ElSayed, Mai & Aghahosseini, Arman & Breyer, Christian, 2023. "High cost of slow energy transitions for emerging countries: On the case of Egypt's pathway options," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 210(C), pages 107-126.
    10. Lindberg, Marie Byskov & Markard, Jochen & Andersen, Allan Dahl, 2019. "Policies, actors and sustainability transition pathways: A study of the EU’s energy policy mix," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(10).
    11. ElSayed, Mai & Aghahosseini, Arman & Caldera, Upeksha & Breyer, Christian, 2023. "Analysing the techno-economic impact of e-fuels and e-chemicals production for exports and carbon dioxide removal on the energy system of sunbelt countries – Case of Egypt," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 343(C).
    12. Alexandra von Meier & Elizabeth L. Ratnam & Kyle Brady & Keith Moffat & Jaimie Swartz, 2020. "Phasor-Based Control for Scalable Integration of Variable Energy Resources," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-14, January.
    13. Sterl, Sebastian & Donk, Peter & Willems, Patrick & Thiery, Wim, 2020. "Turbines of the Caribbean: Decarbonising Suriname's electricity mix through hydro-supported integration of wind power," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    14. Grace C. Wu & Ranjit Deshmukh & Anne Trainor & Anagha Uppal & A. F. M. Kamal Chowdhury & Carlos Baez & Erik Martin & Jonathan Higgins & Ana Mileva & Kudakwashe Ndhlukula, 2024. "Avoiding ecosystem and social impacts of hydropower, wind, and solar in Southern Africa’s low-carbon electricity system," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-13, December.
    15. Farfan, Javier & Lohrmann, Alena & Breyer, Christian, 2019. "Integration of greenhouse agriculture to the energy infrastructure as an alimentary solution," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 368-377.
    16. Muhammad Amir Raza & Muhammad Mohsin Aman & Altaf Hussain Rajpar & Mohamed Bashir Ali Bashir & Touqeer Ahmed Jumani, 2022. "Towards Achieving 100% Renewable Energy Supply for Sustainable Climate Change in Pakistan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(24), pages 1-23, December.
    17. Aroonrat, Kanit & Wongwises, Somchai, 2015. "Current status and potential of hydro energy in Thailand: a review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 70-78.
    18. Bogdanov, Dmitrii & Toktarova, Alla & Breyer, Christian, 2019. "Transition towards 100% renewable power and heat supply for energy intensive economies and severe continental climate conditions: Case for Kazakhstan," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 253(C), pages 1-1.
    19. Hasret Sahin & A. A. Solomon & Arman Aghahosseini & Christian Breyer, 2024. "Systemwide energy return on investment in a sustainable transition towards net zero power systems," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-15, December.
    20. Kumar, Deepak & Katoch, S.S., 2015. "Sustainability suspense of small hydropower projects: A study from western Himalayan region of India," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 220-233.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0236730. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.