Tool to Assess Run-of-the-river Hydropower Projects in Data Scarce Areas

The increase in economic activities, population and rural electrification has significantly increased the energy demand in developing nations. Hydropower is expected to be one of the major contributors to the share of renewable energy production. Though most of the developed nations have already harnessed most of their hydropower potential, developing nations are still struggling in project identification and capacity assessment, mainly due to lack of data and remoteness of area. Here, a framework identify the optimal locations for the implementation of run-of-river hydropower projects in poorly gauged or ungauged basins scarce on hydrologic data is presented. The framework consists of two components. The first component provides information regarding the available flow along the river network, whereas the second component identifies the optimal combination of location and capacity of the projects that can be potentially be installed within the basin. The flow information is obtained using a probabilistic hydrological model which relates flow probability distribution as the function of few topographic and climatic parameters. The hydropower projects are identified by minimizing the specific cost which depends on capacity, discharge and length of the project. The framework was tested in West Rapti basin, situated at the mid-western part of Nepal. Seventy nine different potential configurations of hydropower projects were identified with a capacity ranging from one to seventeen megawatt. Finally, this framework could provide planners a tool to define optimal locations for hydropower development at basin and national scale.