The term “effective hydropower potential” based on sustainable development – an initial case study of the Raba river in Poland

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Abstract

The resources of power engineering raw materials of the Earth, such as coal, oil or gas are limited. The process of energy generation in conventional power plants is also related to emission of many pollutants to the broadly understood environment. For these reasons, the technologies are currently strongly promoted that enable obtaining energy from renewable sources, as the so-called “clean energy”. Energy of water, or to be more precise energy of rivers, is one of the types of renewable sources that are being developed both in Poland and in other countries. The quantitative assessment of the possibilities is most often restricted to presentation of theoretical, technical (in terms of technical possibility of execution) and economic potential. There is a number of additional procedural regulations in many countries that may block erection of a hydropower plant, even in the conditions when its execution would be possible technically and economically. Execution only of these installations is especially important that are consistent with sustainable development. The author thus proposes the term of “effective potential” to allow estimation of production of energy from the given river with the method closest to the real possibilities of execution of new hydropower plants in line with the sustainable development idea. The Raba river in southern Poland has been selected as the example, but the course of the analysis seems to be universal for investments in other countries where procedures may be differ significantly. The resulting “effective potential” provides the actual view on the hydropower generation capacity of the river. The author believe that this term will be accepted for common use.

Introduction

The papers related to analyses of the possibility of generating RE from energy of flowing waters commonly use the term of theoretical potential and technical potential. In this paper, the values of both these potentials are determined for the Raba river in southern Poland as the example, following the methodology used in the industry. Additionally, based on the complete knowledge of the procedure effective in Poland and limitations for execution of HPP when the sustainable development idea is observed, the detailed analysis has been conducted to find the value of the proposed new term called “effective potential”.

The quantitative assessment of the possibilities is most often restricted to presentation of theoretical, technical (in terms of technical possibility of execution) and economic potential. In this point of view the aggregate contribution of HP has been estimated as 6.15% of the total world energy mix [1]. The overall electricity exploited from hydro so far is only 25% of the economically viable potential with its concentration mostly in industrialized country [2]. In Poland it has been reported that only 2,33% of the total RE production in 2014 have been captured by HP [3]. Polish hydroelectric potential is quite low and unevenly distributed between two main rivers catchments (Vistula and Odra). Vistula river basin represents 71,5% of theoretical and 77,6% of technical of total national potential. Odra river basin represents accordingly 25,9% of theoretical and 20,1% of technical potential. The rest of potential belongs to littoral rivers [4].

During the writing process of the Fifth Assessment Report 2014, the definition of “potential” was described in the Glossary [5] as “the possibility of something happening, or of someone doing something in the future”.

Just a short brief overview of literature sources shows that the notion of RE potentials is an unsettled concept. Most authors come up with their own definitions that are mostly not well explained, sometimes seemingly simple but difficult to understand and to generalize. The RE literature provides several names and definitions of RE potentials, not tuned to one another and open to criticism [6]. The definitions shown on Table 1 are intuitively similar but so many terms and definitions associated with ‘‘potentials’ provide no clarity on assessed values.

Only occasionally authors presents a real potential of feasible investments in HP from wide point of view based on actual implementation in a short time. Many studies of RES are focused only on theoretical calculations which result of total/theoretical potential [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16]. The most of them presents also technical potential and costs or benefits named as economic potential [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23]. Assessment of HP potential currently uses modern techniques as GIS and hydrological modeling [11], [15], [24]. To study the economic feasibility of a system, different methods are used to evaluate the different figures of merit of the systems. Some examples are: net present cost [20], annual cost method [25] and others. Performance experiments and economic analysis of renewable sources called by the “technoeconomic appraisal” shows the value of the collective “technoeconomic potential” [26], [27], [28], [29], [30]. Izadyar et al. [31] summarizes the various studies of RES potential assessment including solar, wind and hydropower. The study reviewed previous outstanding studies in the context of various potential parameters (mainly theoretical, technical and economic) determination and various methodologies for estimating these parameters. Only in two studies of 31 papers that have been analyzed, can be found the term “realizable potential” [31]. Resch et al. [32] have defined realizable potential which is employed for a comprehensive study of the future RE progress and this factor is a vital issue to prepare an accurate peruse of the country or region particular location as well as the part which can be realized in the close forthcoming. In fact, realizable future potentials are describing the feasible RE system contribution up in the future. Verbruggen et al. [6] called “realizable potential” as an energy which can be realized within a given timeframe. This energy potential depends on economic conditions as well as global market production capacity. Both of previous definitions seems to be general and the value of realizable potential according to them is difficult to determine precisely. The author thus proposes the term of “effective potential” to allow estimation of production of energy from the given river with the method closest to the real possibilities of execution of new HPPs in line with the sustainable development idea (with respect for the environment) without economical calculations (actual energy market, price, cost and individual financial conditions of investor).

Over the past few decades, decisions about the implementation of many projects related to HP in Poland and in the other countries encountered obstacles in the form of controversies. It was related to the impact of these facilities on the environment and the community residing in the location of the plant and its catchment [33].

The “effective potential” term includes bureaucratic, environmental impact and any additional procedural regulations. In many countries HPPs are blocked from so many reasons e.g. in Brasil the bureaucratic causes the non-viability of the implementation of projects [34], in Scotland the size of the available resource could be highly limited by proximity of high voltage power lines [35]. Also e.g. Colombia has a vast HP potential, but the lack of specific incentives and policies, complications of the administrative procedures and the perception that large HP and fossil fuels provide enough diversity in the energy mix are the main barriers for the penetration of SHP in Colombia [36].

The procedures or restrictions may differ significantly in countries but the main course of the analysis shown in this paper seems to be universal. Especially important is execution only of these installations that are consistent with environmental protection. As an example of potential estimation described in this paper, the river Raba in Poland were chosen with the high average flow capacity factor and available data necessary for calculation.

Section snippets

Water data and site description

The Raba river is the right-bank tributary of Vistula, the largest river in Poland (Fig. 1) in Upper Vistula water region, in the area under the administration of the Regional Water Management Authority (RZGW) in Krakow.2 The total length of the Raba river is 135 km, with the drainage basin equal to 1540 km2. This river belongs to the area of the Carpathian Mountains and their foothill, and usually is characterized as a typical mountain river, with the course that consists

Theoretical hydropower potential

The theoretical resources are understood as ones of the given sources that are generally available without taking into account the technical possibility of their acquisition, environmental and economic limitations. As mentioned, theoretical potential of the RES in a specific situation is equal to a total energy that can be harvested without considering geographical and technical constraints [31]. The Ath is most often defined as the raw potential (gross) equal to the sum of energy obtainable

Estimation of the proposed “effective potential”

The term “effective potential” proposed in this article is basically different from the so-called economic/market/realizable potential that is currently commonly used. Economic potential defines economic justification for the execution of the project, most often based on the time of return of the incurred financial expenditures. In the most published papers financial SHPP estimates should be considered as indicative and with some caution. In fact they are usually only expert estimates [46]. The

Comparison of results

The estimated theoretical potential of the Raba river (along the entire length of the watercourse without tributary potential) is 39 929 kW of installable power and 323 495 973 kWh of produced energy. The technical potential (taking into account non-uniformity of flows, efficiency characteristics of a SHPP and the necessity of leaving the inviolable flow run through fish-passes) was 24 009 kW of installable power and 161 338 858 kWh of the produced energy, respectively. The “effective potential”

Conclusions

The term “effective potential” proposed in this article is the value that depicts the actual river potential that may be achieved in a relatively short time. The estimated value is subject to strong individuation based on the legal regulations effective for the river, the environmental situation and the existing and manageable hydrotechnical infrastructure. This value is significantly lower than the theoretical or technical potential. It does not include economic analysis, as it has been

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    Department of Sanitary Engineering and Water Management, Faculty of Environmental Engineering and Land Surveying, University of Agriculture in Krakow 31–120 Krakow, Al. Mickiewicza 21, Poland.

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