Global Hydropower Simulation - 21st century

This resource contains the 21st century time series data for 1,593 hydropower dams, which collectively represent more than half of the world’s existing installed hydropower capacity (in 2016 when we conducted the study). The time series were generated by forcing a detailed dam model with monthly-resolution, 21st century (2001-2100) inflows—the model includes plant specifications, storage dynamics and realistic operating schemes.

We used inflows simulated by a Global Hydrological Model (GHM) forced by climate projections derived from three General Circulation Models (GCMs). The GCMs are CNRM-CM3 (Centre National de Recherches Météorologiques), ECHAM5/MPIOM (Max Planck Institute of Meteorology) and LMDZ-4 (Institute Pierre Simon Laplace) (denoted CNRM, ECHAM and IPSL). These models belong to the World Climate Research Programme CMIP3 multi-model dataset and were selected to represent a range in projected precipitation change. For each GCM, two emissions scenarios were considered – IPCC SRES scenarios A2 and B1.

Start exploring the data by downloading the Rdata (each corresponding to a different GCM) together with the open_file.R script. You will be able to find monthly-resolution time series outputs of our simulation, including the hydropower production, storage level, and water releases for each dam.

Reference:
[1] Turner, S. W., Ng, J. Y., & Galelli, S. (2017). Examining global electricity supply vulnerability to climate change using a high-fidelity hydropower dam model. Science of the Total Environment, 590, 663-675.