1. Small Hydro or Large Hydro?
The Viability of Low Head Hydropower in Developing Countries under Current and Future Conditions
PhD Candidate: Simbi Hatchard
Supervisors: Paul Bates, Sam Williamson, and Francesca Pianosi, UoB

2. Large Hydropower – Good or Bad?
Renewable Energy
Water Supply resilience - reservoir
Flood Control
Large Hydropower
Upstream Inundation
Disruption of Fisheries
Turn this slide into
Changes in Water Quality
River Fragmentation
Economic Issues

3. Small Hydropower instead of Large?
Lower Environmental / Ecological Impact
Lower up front investment
Small Hydropower
(defined as less than 10MW)
Predictable power output compared to other renewables
Long life and lower maintenance requirements
Now one of the key research questions I want to ask is “to what extent could many SHP be used to meet energy needs”
Firstly, the literature seems to suggest that the term small hydropower is always more environmentally friendly, or environmentally benign. Is this true? First, what is small hydropower? It is defined by generating capacity – however, this isn’t necessarily indicative of its environmental impact alone, since there are three type of small hydropower: dam, ror, diversion. The effects of implementing a small hydropower project on a river are very site specific, so there is a risk of over generalising. This leads to the first

4. Small Hydropower? www.wisecdt.org
Is Small Hydropower necessarily better?
Lower efficiency of power conversion than LHP
No ancillary benefits of a reservoir
Lower distance of transmissibility
Cumulative Environmental effects uncertain
Social Acceptability not a given

5. Proposed Research Research Aim: Research Questions: www.wisecdt.org
Build a Large Scale Hydrodynamic Model integrating SHP siting algorithms, economic analyses, and environmental assessment to quantify cumulative impacts and trade offs associated with SHP development, as well as forecasting performance into the future.
Research Questions:
Where is the economically, environmentally and socially acceptable SHP located?
What are the cumulative economic, environmental, and social implications of widespread SHP implementation?
How good is SHP over the long term?
How would many SHP compare with few large hydro?

6. Research Gaps Identified
Cumulative Environmental Impacts – is SHP on a large scale environmentally benign?
Forecasting performance of SHP into the future under population and climate change
Social impacts / acceptance of SHP

7. Proposed Study Catchment
The Zambezi Basin, located in Sub Saharan Africa, is the proposed study catchment, for the following reasons:
Appreciable amounts of untapped Hydropower
Hydropower Development stands to benefit many in a region afflicted by low HDI’s
Hydropower ought to be developed responsibly, with the environment and other water users kept in mind
While SHP in the UK fulfils only xxx and is projected to not change significantly, there are many countires around the world where the SHP potential is significant, especially Asia. Problem: many of these fall in data sparse cathcments

8. Proposed Study Methodology
Baseline (Current State, Do Nothing)
Energy Model
Future State, Do Nothing
Hydrodynamic Model (DEM + VIC + LISFLOOD)
Multi-objective Optimisation
GIS Model
Current State, Do Something
Population – Dynamics Model
Future State, Do Something

9. Issues
SHP is by nature very site specific. Limit to what can be done using remote sensing data.
Fill in social data by structured interviews / public consultations on the ground? Can you do this at all points in the model?. To what extent can you generalize this data across regions?
Computational power required?
Uncertainty in forecasting future environmental / economic / social conditions
Limit on vertical resolution of SRTM data.