Assessment of hydropower potential of some existing obstacles on rivers. Case study: Arges-Vedea basin, Romania

Abstract

Hydropower represents one of the oldest and most developed technologies for electricity generation. Combined with more and more harsh environmental … societal restrictions, this led to a lack of available sites for developing new hydropower plants. At the same time, water streams are usually equipped with different hydrotechnical works for preventing flooding or assuring/supplying water to various beneficiaries. This is why in the latest years there is a new trend related to empowering existing hydrotechnical structures. This paper presents an assessment of the theoretical hydropower potential for 7 existing water barriers in Arges-Vedea hydrographic basin, Romania. Based on historical river discharge data and forecasted data for two climate change scenarios, RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5, the gain in clean energy is presented and compared with the results for the reference period. The results show that while the cost of empowering the considered sites is around 760,000 Euro, a total energy generation of over 600 MWh/year can be obtained.