Transboundary hydropower dams are sources of hydroelectricity supply that sit in shared international rivers or watersheds, and/or generate benefits and costs that flow across national borders. ...Scholars have been exploring the impacts of hydropower dams at a local, regional and national scale for decades, however the transboundary impacts of hydropower ventures have been less studied. Nonetheless, the advent of a new hydropower boom, where a large proportion of untapped hydropower potential lies in transboundary settings, means that there is a need to better understand the specific benefits and costs in those contexts to foster more equitable and just outcomes, and to better examine the dynamics shaping the future of hydroelectricity. To depict the state-of-the-art within this critical field of research, we conduct a systematic review of 1264 peer-reviewed articles published on transboundary hydropower dams from 2009 to 2019. We find that most studies in our sample focus on issues related to water management and water allocation, whereas fewer focus on the scope of hydropower benefits, their temporal and spatial variation, and equity and justice dimensions. Moreover, there is minimal exploration of how differences in relative economic and financial capabilities can impact the distribution of transboundary hydropower benefits. Whether transboundary hydropower dams lead to optimal outcomes is highly dependent on underlying benefit sharing arrangements as well as an explicit acknowledgement and tackling of governance asymmetries. The study concludes that there is an urgent need to systematically assess these conditions to favour just outcomes for all stakeholders.
•Transboundary hydropower configurations are central to the future of global energy supply.•Conducts a systematic review of 1,264 studies in the literature to identify key trends.•Offers a conceptualisation of transboundary dams based on notions of shared resources and networked regional infrastructure.•Identifies 90 dams across four continents in the sample and reveals factors that shape cooperation in a variety of settings.•Suggests a need for more comparative studies and increased attention to factors influencing equitable energy outcomes.
China has experienced an unprecedented increase in hydropower development with the implementation of the ‘West–East Electricity Transfer’ project. Its total hydropower capacity has reached 350 GW, of ...which nearly one-third is transmitted to the load centre through an ultra-high-voltage power network. However, the absorption of abundant hydropower in southwest China is still a challenge, with increasing hydropower curtailment each year. This study provides an overview of the evolution of hydropower absorption, analyses the major problems and possible causes, and suggests several technical solutions. It is suggested to optimise the generation operations with power network limitations and transmission schedules to make full use of transmission channels and improve operational flexibility. Meanwhile, receiving power grids should coordinate the operations between southwestern hydropower and their local plants, and hydropower allocation among subordinate power grids. The differences in operation characteristics, regulation ability, and load demands will be helpful for efficiently absorbing large-scale outer hydropower. Reasonable economic incentives and compensation mechanisms are considered as another method to alleviate hydropower curtailment. Ancillary service market and discrepant electricity prices during different receivers and different periods are suggested. The overall analysis results indicate that there is great space for promoting hydropower absorption under existing transmission channel conditions.
The paper reviews recent research and development activities in the field of hydropower technology. It covers emerging and advanced technologies to mitigate flow instabilities (active and passive ...approach) as well as emerging magneto-rheological control techniques. Recent research findings on flow instabilities are also presented, especially concerning fluid-structure interaction and transient operating conditions. As a great number of the existing large-scale hydroelectric facilities were constructed decades ago using technologies that are now considered obsolete, technologies to achieve the digitalisation of hydropower are also analysed. Advances in the electro-mechanical components and generator design are presented; their potential role to adapt hydropower to the current operating conditions is also highlighted. The text explores current efforts to advance hydropower operation, mainly in terms of European projects. It provides a detailed overview of the recent efforts to increase the operational range of hydraulic turbines in order to reach exceptional levels of flexibility, a topic of several recent research projects. Variable speed hydropower generation and its application in pumped storage power plants are presented in detail. Moreover, revolutionary concepts for hydroelectric energy storage are also presented with the analysis focusing on underwater hydro storage and hydropower's hybridisation with fast energy storage systems. Efforts to minimise hydropower's environmental footprint are also presented via the utilisation of small-scale and fish-friendly installations.
•Recent research and development activities in the field of hydropower technology are reviewed.•Novel concepts of hydropower energy storage are presented.•The perspective of the digitalisation of existing and new hydropower stations is analysed.•Fish-friendly, environmental-friendly and small-scale hydropower solutions are outlined.
Siloed-approaches may fuel the misguided development of hydropower and subsequent target-setting under the sustainable development goals (SDGs). While hydropower development in the Indus basin is ...vital to ensure energy security (SDG7), it needs to be balanced with water use for fulfilling food (SDG2) and water (SDG6) security. Existing methods to estimate hydropower potential generally focus on: only one class of potential, a methodological advance for either of hydropower siting, sizing, or costing of one site, or the ranking of a portfolio of projects. A majority of them fall short in addressing sustainability. Hence, we develop a systematic framework for the basin-scale assessment of the sustainable hydropower potential by integrating considerations of the water-energy-food nexus, disaster risk, climate change, environmental protection, and socio-economic preferences. Considering the case of the upper Indus, the framework is developed by combining advances in literature, insights from local hydropower practitioners and over 30 datasets to represent real-life challenges to sustainable hydropower development, while distinguishing between small and large plants for two run-of-river plant configurations. The framework first addresses theoretical potential and successively constrains this further by stepwise inclusion of technical, economical, and sustainability criteria to obtain the sustainable exploitable hydropower potential. We conclude that sustainable hydropower potential in complex basins such as the Indus goes far beyond the hydrological boundary conditions. Our framework enables the careful inclusion of factors beyond the status-quo technological and economic criterions to guide policymakers in hydropower development decisions in the Indus and beyond. Future work will implement the framework to quantify the different hydropower potential classes and explore adaptation pathways to balance SDG7 with the other interlinked SDGs in the Indus.
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•We present a systematic framework to assess sustainable hydropower potential.•The framework assesses theoretical, technical, economic, and sustainable potential.•It combines 30 datasets to represent natural, legal, disaster and social constraints.•Including these constraints in early assessments can improve hydropower decisions•The framework helps balance SDG7 (energy) with the linked SDGs 2 & 6 (food, water).
More than 70% of the dams under construction or planned in major river basins are transboundary. In this paper, based on original data and field research in three continents, we explore the impacts ...of transboundary dams in the major hydropower states of Laos, Paraguay, and Bhutan. We do so by looking at dimensions pertaining to energy security and technological capabilities and reflecting on the challenges faced by these countries under the lens of energy justice. The paper integrates elements from the energy security and justice frameworks with the concept of technological capabilities to study the distribution of energy benefits between partner countries and to shed light on until now unaccounted dimensions specific to transboundary energy generation and sharing in asymmetrical contexts, offering a comparative view with potential lessons for other countries. We offer conclusive insights about hydropower resource potential, scale, revenues, innovation, and policy.
•Integrates elements of energy security, justice and technological capabilities.•Presents a synthetic analysis of the impacts of hydropower in transboundary settings.•Contrasts impacts of transboundary dams in Laos, Paraguay and Bhutan.•Draws on qualitative and quantitative data of six countries.
The universal lack of access to available water infrastructure data restricts the quantification of hydropower potential and thus the identification of new potential sites. Furthermore, limited ...research on methods to alleviate the problem associated with hydropower evaluation using limited data exists. To address this deficit, a generic framework was developed to quantify the potential and to identify conduit hydropower sites in bulk water supply systems when limited data poses a challenge. This paper describes the development of the first generic method of evaluating hydropower potential in water infrastructure and provides an example of implementation to verify/validate the range of recommended assumptions using a South African case study. The developed conduit hydropower framework was applied to five case studies to estimate the potential available for three scenarios with different levels of data availability. The analyses showed that on average the variance between the actual potential and the estimated potential available using the developed framework ranges between 6% and 18%. The newly-developed conduit hydropower framework can thus be used to identify hydropower potential in water distribution systems.
•Generic conduit hydropower evaluation framework to quantify potential.•Criteria within the framework alleviate problems associated with limited data.•Conduit hydropower framework provides a first order estimate of potential available.•The framework criteria are validated according to the study area under investigation.
Over the last two decades, the world has experienced a boom in the number of hydropower projects. Considered an important part of sustainable development, particularly in post-socialist transition ...and developing countries, it is claimed that hydropower plants will make substantial contributions to environmentally friendly economic growth and poverty eradication. However, the so-called ‘hydropower boom’ has not resulted in a global mass construction of plants. In general, over-ambitious planning, a lack of funding opportunities and corruption are often put forward as explanations for the discrepancy between the number of plans and actual construction of hydropower plants. In this paper, it is added to these three reasons, illustrating with a case study from Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the planning of hydropower projects very rarely results in their construction. The results are based on secondary data and primary data, i.e. semi-structured interviews and informal talks, collected during fieldwork in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The data was analyzed using the analytical induction method. The results highlight how administrative complexity, over-estimations of exploitable capacity, an unattractive sociopolitical and socioeconomic situation and how these factors in combination create the conditions for various practices of corruption hinder the construction of plants. Comparing the results with other findings from around the world, the paper suggests approaching the so-called global hydropower boom with caution.
•Over-ambitious planning results in an unrealistic number of planned project.•Lack of funding opportunities hinders the actual construction of the projects.•Prevalent corruption result in projects being revoked or remaining on paper.
As a kind of zero-carbon and high-efficiency energy, hydrogen has attracted more attention with clean energy technology development. However, large-scale green hydrogen application is difficult to ...promote because of its high production cost. China is rich in water resources, but the utilization rate is low, which causes serious water abandonment problems. This article studies the optimal operation of combined cascade reservoir and hydrogen system to improve the utilization of water resources and the system's economic benefits. In this article, a multi-objective nonlinear model is established. An expanded progressive optimization algorithm is adopted to solve the problem more efficiently and accurately. The weights of objective functions are discussed with data from the Hongru River Basin in China. The rationality and effectiveness of combining cascade reservoir and hydrogen system are verified through the optimal operation of water resources and the optimal allocation of power and hydrogen. In addition, the overall economic benefits and reservoir operation efficiency are improved.
During the excavation of rock mass with the method of drill and blast, the release of in-situ stress, also known as excavation load on boundary, is traditionally assumed as a quasi-static process, so ...the inertia and all other dynamic responses induced by the release of in-situ stress can be ignored. After analyzing the process of release of in-situ stress induced by rock mass excavation with the method of drill and blast and determining the duration of the release of in-situ stress, it is found that the release of in-situ stress induced strain rate can reach a magnitude of 10−1–101/s or higher if the initial in-situ stress has a level of 20–50MPa, it implies that the release of in-situ stress is a transient process, and the transient character of the release of in-situ stress and correspondingly induced dynamic response of surrounding rock should be taken into account together with excavation. Problems such as the determination of redistributed in-situ stress corresponding to initiation sequences of millisecond delays, the way and path of the transient release of in-situ stress, transient release of in-situ stress induced vibration and comparison with blasting induced vibration are also discussed in this paper. Finally, a case of in-situ stress release induced vibration in Pubugou hydropower projects are presented as verifications.
► Releasing process of in-situ stress during deep rock blasting is discussed. ► In-situ stress is released with 2–5ms in the blasts of most deep-buried tunnels. ► Transient release of in-situ stress induced dynamic responses should be considered. ► Numerical simulation is conducted to demonstrate the presented theory.
Developers are required to mitigate the environmental impacts of hydropower projects in the United States (U.S.) but there is very little accessible information on the associated costs. This study ...compiles and analyses a dataset of environmental impacts mitigation costs for 182 hydropower projects based on documents obtained from the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The analysis shows that environmental costs vary wildly across hydropower project classes and mitigation measures, even when normalized by plant capacity. Capital costs per kilowatt are generally higher for relicensed conventional hydropower plants, and lower for new and relicensed pumped storage hydropower plants, relative to other project classes. Smaller plants tend to spend a higher share of total project costs on mitigating environmental impacts than larger plants, and measures related to Aquatic Species, Project Operations, and Recreation have the highest capital cost per kilowatt. These findings mean that environmental costs could become a key decision variable for new hydropower developments in the U.S. due to the small scale of most of the remaining potential and the increasing stringency of environmental requirements. Therefore, technologies to reduce the environmental impacts and costs of hydropower would be important for future project developments.
•A database of hydropower environmental impact mitigation measures and costs is assembled.•Patterns of costs across eleven mitigation measures and five project classes are examined.•Mitigation costs per kilowatt are generally higher for plants with small total capacities.•Capital costs of mitigation per kilowatt are smaller for pumped storage projects than other classes.•Reducing environmental impacts mitigation costs is crucial for new U.S. hydropower projects.
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