Local, Regional, and Global Trade-Offs of Hydropower Relicensing Decisions An Analysis of Electric Generation, Revenue, Electricity Market, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, and Local Environmental Impacts

Other · Mon May 16 04:00:00 EDT 2016

OSTI ID:1646478

Rand, Joseph ^[1]

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1. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Large hydropower systems incur various impacts on society and the environment, but the manner in which these systems are operated can determine the severity of these impacts. The federal hydropower relicensing process – which occurs only once every 30-50 years – examines a number of potential impacts, but disregards others. This paper identifies some of the local, regional, and global trade-offs that should be examined more explicitly in relicensing proceedings. These include higher-resolution analyses of impacts on generation and revenue (including ancillary services) and the potential greenhouse gas impacts of different hydropower operating regimes. Any reduction of low-carbon generation may result in global environmental and social harms if it is replaced by fossil fuel generation. Although rarely quantified in the hydropower relicensing process, this is an important value in understanding the range of costs and benefits of different operating proposals. Using a case study of the Yuba River Development Project, this study finds that an environmentally protective operating regime reduces electric generation by 6.1% but increases ancillary services provision by 1.9% on average. The reduced hydropower generation is replaced by natural gas generation, resulting in an increase in CO2 emissions with a global social cost of about $1 million annually.

• Research Organization: Hydropower Foundation
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Water Power Technologies Office
• DOE Contract Number: EE0006506
• OSTI ID: 1646478
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

13 HYDRO ENERGY