Support for low-carbon energy and opposition to new large dams encourages global development of small hydropower facilities. This support is manifested in national and international energy and development policies designed to incentivize growth in the small hydropower sector while curtailing large dam construction. However, the preference of small to large dams assumes, without justification, t...

Renewable energy is an important topic in China as the country experiences increased wealth and energy demand. Historically, hydropower has been a valuable source of renewable energy production in China, and will continue to be as the Chinese increase hydroelectric facilities by 2020. Using provincial level data from 1980-2010, this paper estimates the relationship between the percentage of hyd...

despite the numerous advantages of large dams, there is still a deep suspicion about the real,long-term benefits and costs of their construction. land use change on a vast scale, displacement of a largepopulation of indigenous people, loss of biodiversity and production of greenhouse gas emissions, as well as environmental, socioeconomic and cultural consequences resulting therefrom, indicate c...

The construction of large hydropower plants involves potentially high risks for the health and lives of persons as well as for the environment. Therefore a particularly high level of safety is required for such plants. The implementation of such high safety standards in power plants begins with construction measures such as the selection of suitable material, dimensions and monitoring the quali...

Currently, hydropower accounts for close to 16% of the world’s total power supply and is the world’s most dominant (86%) source of renewable electrical energy. The key resource for hydropower generation is runoff, which is dependent on precipitation. The future global climate is uncertain and thus poses some risk for the hydropower generation sector. The crucial question and challenge then is w...

A number of algorithms have been developed for the optimization of power plant maintenance schedules. However, the true test of such algorithms occurs when they are applied to real systems. In this paper, the application of an Ant Colony Optimization formulation to a hydropower system is presented. The formulation is found to be effective in handling various constraints commonly encountered in ...