Impact of extreme cold events on disruption of hydro-energy generation

This proposal is in response to NASA EPSCoR Rapid Response Research (R3) Solicitation (NNH20ZHA001C) that is related to “Appendix C: SMD Earth Sciences Division” using remote sensing measurements from on-orbit satellites (Terra and Aqua) and a suite of ground based measurements to investigate extreme cold weather on disruption of hydro-energy generation. Hydropower is a key contribution to the U.S. renewable energy portfolio because of its cleanness, high efficiency, and reliability. Research to date indicates it is possible for extreme cold events to increase in frequency or intensity regionally for periods of time (e.g., due to increases in the intensity of cold air advection from polar to lower-latitude regions), interannual variability can be large enough to allow extreme cold events such as that occurred in North America in 2014. These events can change the water supplies rapidly for hydroelectric power generation. General impacts on hydropower generation by climate variability include earlier snowmelt, change of runoff seasonality, and increasing frequency of extreme events of high and low steam flows. Events of extremely low streamflow will inevitably disrupt the hydropower generation, especially for the run-of-the-river hydroelectric power plants. The objective of this NASA EPSCoR Rapid Response Research project is to investigate how hydroelectric power generation can be disrupted by cold events (temperature < -20 C for a period of at least a few days) by developing a hydroelectric model driven by remotely sensed snow cover, land surface temperature, and cloud coverage measured by the on-orbit satellites such as Terra and Aqua, along with a diverse set of ground-based weather and hydrological data sets. We proposed to use the on-orbit satellite (Aqua and Terra) MODIS snow, temperature, and cloud data to study the impact of extremely cold weather on the production of hydropower generation, especially the hydropower due to run-of-river hydropower plants or diversion plants where reservoirs have almost no storage capacity and extremely cold weather could reduce streamflow to almost zero.

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