Risks for small hydropower plants associated with climate change

The aim of this project is to support economic risk assessments of long-term investments by small hydropower plant (SHP) operations due to a changing climate. We will estimate the impact of climate change on distribution and frequency of the inflow in a snowmelt dominated tributary of a SHP using an innovative combination of novel components: a stochastic 2-dimensional weather generator, and a high-resolution energy balance snow cover model coupled to a gridded hydrological model. The weather generator's high-resolution climate scenarios will refine the latest CH2018 scenarios available through NCCS. This project will utilize methods and tools developed in the framework of SCCER-Supply of Electricity (SoE) optimally using synergies across WSL locations and with external SCCER partners.