The impacts of climate change on Swiss hydropower

摘要

Climate change has broad consequences for the electricity system both on the demand and supply side (Mideksa & Kallbekken, 2010; Chandramowli & Felder, 2015). On the one hand, consequences affecting electricity production and consumptions stem from gradual, irreversible changes in temperature and precipitation patterns. On the other hand, these consequences are due to more frequent occurance of extreme events. In this paper, our focus is on the impact of climate change on hydropower in Switzerland. Unlike former studies which focus on the quantity effect of changes to total hydropower production potential (e.g., SGHL, 2011), we embed future hydrologic inflows into an hourly electricity market model Swissmod (Schlecht & Weigt, 2014) for a full year with high degree of detail on hydropower operation. This modelling approach enables us to capture not only the possible quantitive effect of changes in water availability and potential generation output but also likely effects on seasonality and market value. Furthermore, we are able to calculate changes in revenue for hydropower operators and assess the feedback effect that changes in hydrologic potential have on electricity market prices. While climate change might lead to an overall reduced total availability in generation potential from hydropower, it is also likely to lead to an increase in winter production. Additionally, reductions and shifts in inflows may free up storage capacities for excess solar generation during summer months, which could overcompensate for revenue shortfalls due to a general reduction in generation.