Morpho-climatic controls (Task 2.1)

The project OPT-HE has the objective to increase the production of large hydropower plants by hydrological high performance forecasts which allow optimizing the management of the dams and reducing water loss by spillage inside of a complex catchment.

The project assesses how decadal predictions can be used for middle-term forecasts in the hydro-glaciological context. The aim is to support achieving the goals defined in the Swiss Energy Strategy 2050.

The project HEPS4Power explores the use of extended-range hydrological ensemble predictions systems (HEPS) for improving the operations and revenues of hydropower systems. Monthly to seasonal forecasts will be tested and novel post-processing and verification methods will be developed.

The main objective of this project is to generate very high-resolution climate scenarios for hydropower projection for the mid and end of the 21th century using state of the art global and regional climate models and greenhouse gas scenario ensemble. For that purpose a new stochastic weather generator is being developed with the aim of formulating a high spatial and temporal resolution (e.g. 1 km x 1 km and 5 min) for simulating key climate variables (e.g. precipitation, temperature, cloud cover, etc.) at local scale and over a raster. This will allow better exploring the uncertainties in the projected climate scenarios at basin scale, which result from emission scenarios, natural-stochastic climate variability, and global circulations models.

Previous studies on the impact of climate change on water resources provided clear perspectives for annual and spring/summer water availability for hydropower. However, for the water inflow to hydropower plants during the critical winter period, an in-depth analysis is still missing. This project makes use of the available model simulations, as well as of most recent climate change scenarios to highlight the perspectives for water flow to hydropower plants in late autumn and winter throughout the 21^st century.

Until recently, direct measurements of ice thickness were limited to a few selected glaciers. Supported by the Swiss Geophysical Commission (SGPK) and Swiss Competence Center on Supply of Electricity (SCCER-SoE) an initiative to improve the knowledge of ice volume distribution in the Swiss Alps was started. An important step towards this goal includes the delineation of the glacier bedrock topography using a new approach of ice flux computation. Additional measurements on not yet surveyed glaciers are needed and previous surveys will be completed.