Small Hydro or Large Hydro?

1. Small Hydro or Large Hydro? The Viability of Low Head Hydropower in Developing Countries under Current and Future Conditions PhD Candidate: SimbiHatchard Supervisors: Paul Bates, Sam Williamson, and Francesca Pianosi, UoB

2. Large Hydropower – Good or Bad? Renewable Energy Water Supply resilience - reservoir Flood Control Large Hydropower Upstream Inundation Disruption of Fisheries Changes in Water Quality River Fragmentation Economic Issues www.wisecdt.org

3. Small Hydropower instead of Large? Lower Environmental / Ecological Impact Lower up front investment Small Hydropower (defined as less than 10MW) Predictable power output compared to other renewables Long life and lower maintenance requirements www.wisecdt.org

4. Small Hydropower? Is Small Hydropower necessarily better? Lower efficiency of power conversion than LHP No ancillary benefits of a reservoir Lower distance of transmissibility Cumulative Environmental effects uncertain Social Acceptability not a given www.wisecdt.org

5. Proposed Research Research Aim: • Build a Large Scale Hydrodynamic Model integrating SHP siting algorithms, economic analyses, and environmental assessment to quantify cumulative impacts and trade offs associated with SHP development, as well as forecasting performance into the future. Research Questions: • Where is the economically, environmentally and socially acceptable SHP located? • What are the cumulative economic, environmental, and social implications of widespread SHP implementation? • How good is SHP over the long term? • How would many SHP compare with few large hydro? www.wisecdt.org

6. Research Gaps Identified Cumulative Environmental Impacts – is SHP on a large scale environmentally benign? Forecasting performance of SHP into the future under population and climate change Social impacts / acceptance of SHP www.wisecdt.org

7. Proposed Study Catchment • The Zambezi Basin, located in Sub Saharan Africa, is the proposed study catchment, for the following reasons: • Appreciable amounts of untapped Hydropower • Hydropower Development stands to benefit many in a region afflicted by low HDI’s • Hydropower ought to be developed responsibly, with the environment and other water users kept in mind www.wisecdt.org

8. Proposed Study Methodology Baseline (Current State, Do Nothing) Energy Model Future State, Do Nothing Hydrodynamic Model (DEM + VIC + LISFLOOD) Multi-objective Optimisation GIS Model Current State, Do Something Population – Dynamics Model Future State, Do Something www.wisecdt.org

9. Issues • SHP is by nature very site specific. Limit to what can be done using remote sensing data. • Fill in social data by structured interviews / public consultations on the ground? Can you do this at all points in the model?. To what extent can you generalize this data across regions? • Computational power required? • Uncertainty in forecasting future environmental / economic / social conditions • Limit on vertical resolution of SRTM data. www.wisecdt.org