Climate Action 2011-2012

Upper
Reservoir
Pumped storage in action.
High demand/Generation
Power Station
Low demand/Pumping
Lower
Reservoir
hydropower’S role In a clImate
changed world
Hydropower has a role to play in both mitigating against
and adapting to the effects of climate change.
The UN Climate Change Conference in Cancún provided
an acknowledgement that adaptation must be addressed with
the same priority as mitigation with the establishment of the
Cancún Adaptation Framework. A central pillar of adaptation
is water, and within the negotiations there was recognition
of the need to better manage water, most importantly the
need for storage to ensure flexibility and address supply
issues. Hydropower has a key role to play in developing this
capacity. It is one of the few users of stored water able to
provide substantial revenue streams that can fund the required
infrastructure. As the variability of water supply increases
and demands further storage and management, hydropower
provides a means both of supplying clean renewable energy,
and funding infrastructure development.
In mitigating against the impacts of climate change,
hydropower plays a role both as a renewable energy
in its own right, and as an enabler of other renewable
technologies. It provides a large portion of the current
mix of renewable energy, representing around 80 per cent
of currently installed renewable capacity, and as it has
been used for over 100 years is considered technologically
advanced. In the form of dams, it provides numerous
ancillary benefits such as storage (as mentioned above), flood
control, irrigation and recreation. Hydropower offers both
base load provision, for example through large run of river
hydropower SuStaInabIlIty
aSSeSSment protocol
If sustainability aspects are not taken into consideration,
construction and operation of hydropower dams can have
significant environmental (e.g. adverse impacts on natural river
systems and quality and security of drinking water, wetland
destruction) and social impacts (e.g. forced displacements,
adverse effects on of agricultural and fishing activities).
Reflecting the recognition of its increasingly important
role, the hydropower industry has worked with concerned
stakeholders and partners over the past three years to develop
the Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol. The
Protocol is an enhanced sustainability assessment tool which
is being used to measure and guide performance in the
hydropower sector.
It assesses the four main stages of hydropower
development: Early Stage, Preparation, Implementation and
Operation. Assessments rely on objective evidence to create
a sustainability profile against some 20 topics depending on
the relevant stage, and covering all aspects of sustainability.
The development process of the Protocol involved field
trials in 13 different countries and stakeholder
engagement with 1,933 individuals in 28 countries.
Storage showing actual capacity on a normal scale.
Discharge Time (hr) (hr)
100
100
90
90
80
80
70
70
60 60
50 50
Pumped Storage Hydro Hydro
40
30 CAES
20 20
10
10
0
0 0 1000 2000
0 1000 2000
Rated Power (MW)
Rated Power (MW)
PSH Pumped Storage Hydro Na-S Sodium-sulfur
CAES PSH Compressed Pumped Storage Air Hydro VR Na-S Vanadium Sodium-sulfur
redox
EDLC CAES Dbl-layer Compressed capacitors Air
L/A VR Lead-acid Vanadium redox
Ni-MH
EDLC
Nickel-metal
Dbl-layer capacitors
hydride Zn-Br
L/A
Zinc-bromine
Lead-acid
Li-Ion Lithium-ion
FW Flywheel
Ni-Cd Ni-MH Nickel-cadmium
Nickel-metal hydride Zn-Br Zinc-bromine
Li-Ion Lithium-ion
FW Flywheel
Ni-Cd Nickel-cadmium
143 climateactionprogramme.org