Climate change impact assessment on hydropower generation using multi-model climate ensemble

Hydropower is the primary renewable source of energy that harnesses the power of the naturally flowing water streams and its potential is strongly impacted by the hydrological regime. The objective of the present research is to carry out a hydrological model based study to assess the impacts of climate change on hydropower generation by using the regional climate model (RCM) data available through coordinated regional downscaling experiment (CORDEX), and subsequently to analyse the effect of using model ensemble in projecting the future hydrology and energy generation scenario. C.H.Corn hydroelectric project located on River Ochlockonee near Tallahassee in Florida, USA, has been considered as a case study. A hydrologic model of the basin, draining into the dam, is developed using a conceptual model HYMOD with the historical climate and flow data extracted from the model parameter estimation experiment (MOPEX) dataset. The future projected climate scenario (2091-2100) is generated following the Representative Concentrated Pathways (RCP) 4.5 with the ensembles of six climate models. The impact of the future climate on water availability indicates a significant seasonal variability among the model ensemble results with an overall annual increase of statistics for the climate variables, corresponding inflows and a marginal increase in the energy generation.