Hydropower system modelling

Reseach aims

We are developing an advanced modeling framework for the integrated simulation of the operation of hydropower plants, which accounts for climate-altered streamflow regimes, new demand and market conditions, as well as new boundary conditions for operation (e.g., aquatic ecosystem conservation).

The modelling framework will allow to answer a number of challenging questions on the future of Swiss hydropower:

• Are the existing reservoir operating rules suitable to cope with the increase variability and dynamic conditions or will the Swiss energy companies have to substantially revise them?
  
• Is the effect of the change in the energy market smaller, larger or comparable to the climate change signal?
  

• How much will any change cost to the Swiss hydropower companies?

Modelling approach

The model consists of two primary components:

• a physically based and spatially distributed hydrological model, which describes the relevant hydrological processes at the basin scale,
  
• and an optimization based decision model, which describes the behavior of hydropower operators.
  

This model allows to quantitatively exploring possible trajectories of future evolution of the hydropower systems under the combined effect of climate and socio-economic drivers, which have been developed by other SCCER research partners.