Date 8 May 2017

Time 09:00-12:00

Co-convenor World Bank Group

Many countries are seeking to gain a better understanding of the impacts of climate change - both positive and negative - and are beginning to build strategies and approaches to incorporate climate resilience into their plans.

A likely next step for partners working in this field is to develop sector guidelines both for climate change adaptation services and for the incorporation of climate resilience into existing hydropower facilities and modernisation projects.

To address this risk, the World Bank has launched an initiative that aims to produce a practical set of climate resilience guidelines. These would be designed to ensure that both existing and future hydropower projects are resilient to climate change.

This workshop was an opportunity to hear about good practices from key global players. It also introduced the proposed guidelines for building climate resilience into both planned and existing hydropower projects.

Representatives from developed and developing countries presented their own experiences of the central role climate resilience plays in hydropower development within their jurisdictions.

CLIMATE RESILIENCE FOR HYDROPOWER PROJECTS

International Hydropower Association

Chancery House, St Nicholas Way, Sutton, London SM1 IJB, United Kingdom

T: +44 20 8652 5290 F: +44 20 8643 5600 E: iha@hydropower.org

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WORKSHOP REPORT

Speakers• Pravin Karki, senior hydropower specialist, World Bank Group• Raffaello Cervigni, lead environmental economist, World Bank Group• Bruno Trouille, senior hydropower specialist, Mott MacDonald• Gabriel Azevedo, head of environment, social and governance division, Inter-American

Investment Corporation (IIC)• Marco Braun, hydroclimatology specialist, Ouranos• Linus Mofor, senior expert, UNECA - African Climate Policy Centre • Divas Basynat, senior water resources specialist, Nepal Development Research Institute (NDRI)• Tammy Chu, managing director, Entura• Bill Girling, hydropower development director, International Hydropower Association (IHA)

2017 World Hydropower Congress

Key discussion pointsKeynote speaker Pravin Karki of the World Bank Group set out the importance of work in climate resilience for the hydropower sector.

Building climate resilience into hydropower and dam infrastructure investment is essential. The long life span of this infrastructure can make it vulnerable to future, uncertain changes in climate.

This risk has led the funders of the World Bank’s International Development Agency (IDA) to establish a policy priority for ensuring the resilience of these infrastructure investments.

Building climate resilience into hydropower and dam infrastructure investment is essential

Through a video intervention, Raffaello Cervigni offered his perspectives on the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) programme, addressing in particular the challenges in the water sectors and roads.

Investments for climate resilience vary significantly according to different future projections and under different climate scenarios (eg precipitation), which ultimately affects the design of the infrastructure.

Gabriel Azevedo spoke about climate resilience from the perspective of the Latin American companies IIC works with. He pointed out that some Latin American countries are particularly vulnerable to climate change due to their geography, population, infrastructure setup (or lack thereof), their fragile natural resources for economic activities and livelihoods; and because they are located between two continental masses and oceans, affected by El Niño, etc.

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CLIMATE RESILIENCE FOR HYDROPOWER PROJECTS

Tammy Chu

Bruno Trouille

Marco Braun and Linus Mofor

Divas Basnyat

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According to Azevedo, there is no common understanding among policy-makers around the terms ‘mitigation’, ‘adaptation’, and ‘resilience’.

Effort is needed to clarify and define these terms. At COP 21, resilience in the energy sector was understood to refer to robustness, resourcefulness and recovery.

He suggested a number of issues to consider when thinking about climate resilience:

• Technology and information: developing regional climate models; information systems; climate monitoring networks; multidisciplinarystudies; and training and capacity building.

• Portfolio of adaptation projects: increasing the reliability of existing systems through grid integration and cooperation measures, in particular incentral America.

• Consider climate change at the design level: systems should be flexible, integrated with renewables, reduce water consumption and maximise water efficiency. Also consider seasonal challenges and storage capacity. For example, run-of-river projects may encounter difficulties in the future if thefrequency of the high-extreme precipitation rises, resulting in more vulnerable systems.

• Institutional issues: the role of governments; and providing incentivesfor greater private sector participation.

Marco Braun of the Canadian climate research consortium, Ouranos, described some of the barriers organisations in developed countries face in terms of

developing resilient infrastructure, including:

• The understanding and perception ofclimate change risks.

• Accessing climate data and climatemodel projections.

• Understanding and quantifying climateprojection uncertainty.

• Communicating between experts ofvarious backgrounds.

• The limitations of existing climatemodelling tools.

Bruno Trouille introduced the work Mott MacDonald is involved in to develop guidelines, based on a programme of six phases in building climate resilience into hydropower and dam infrastructure. He emphasised that stakeholder engagement is critical to the process and runs through all six phases.

In addition, it is important to consider economic or financial performance throughout the process, to ensure that resilience measures are viable.

A key step towards evaluating the vulnerability of a project or system to climate risks can be assessed through a climate stress test with a defined threshold.

Three case studies were presented from various regions, illustrating the climate resilience measures these countries have implemented and some of the challenges they face.

Divas Basnyat spoke of the challenges Nepal is facing in terms of understanding the complex nature of climate variability in the country. He also described the challenges the government faces in making decisions

about hydropower development now, that will remain robust and build resilience 25 to 30 years on.

Nepal is exploring the idea of a national authority that could develop a river basin plan so the projects would consider both the upstream and downstream impacts.

Tammy Chu presented an integrated system approach to addressing vulnerability in Tasmania. Hydro Tasmania has had strategies in place for responding to climate change since 2007, and has been implementing climate-future projections since then.

She described the different elements of building resilience, including: upgrades and maintenance of power stations; drought management procedures; emergency management planning to address flood-related risks; and bushfire and extreme weather events.

Hydro Tasmania has had strategies in place for responding to climate change since 2007

All of these plans proved efficient during the year 2015/2016 when Tasmania suffered a long summer drought together with bushfires, followed by historic high floods.

Linus Mofor presented the experiences of the Sanaga Basin in Cameroon, which represents 6 GW of hydropower potential, 50 per cent of the country’s total.

He detailed the resilience measures being implemented, including enhancing the effects of existing storage, developing additional storage and regulating generation, such as through the Lom Pangar dam, currently under construction.

CLIMATE RESILIENCE FOR HYDROPOWER PROJECTS

Greg Morris presenting at a breakout session

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Key outcomesOrganisations need to consider building resilience to climate change into the design level of hydropower projects, by:

• Developing flexible hydropower systems that emphasise joint operation.

• Developing energy generation systems that are integrated with other renewables (eg wind, solar, and biomass).

• Designing hydropower systems that focus on reducing water consumption as much as possible through the greatest usable head (technically and economically viable).

• Design hydropower systems that consider seasonal storage capacity to compensate for flow reduction.

• Participants also agreed that climate change is an opportunity for hydropower to play a more prominent role in hybrid systems.

A number of comments were raised relating to the draft climate resilience guidelines:

• Regional consortia would help to facilitate building climate changeresilience into hydropower.

• Climate services are available forcustomised data, expertise and capacity-building.

Climate change is an opportunity for hydropower to play a more prominent role in hybrid systems

• Adaptation or implementation of adequate tools (eg hydro models, decision-making approaches) is a necessary initial step in the process.

• Climate resilience should be viewed in a similar way to conventional risk assessment, requiring new approachesand data.

• Upstream climate science needs to beconnected with downstream

engineering practices.

• Practical guidelines are needed to achieve climate resilience in the planning, design, construction and operation of new projects, as well as during reviews and assessments of operational performance, rehabilitation and upgrade of existing projects.

• It is important to identify and evaluate robust approaches for planning, evaluating, and designing hydro-specific infrastructure investments.

• A guidance document should be aimed at those responsible for the planning, funding, development, construction and operation of hydropower projects in all regions of the world.

• Both the functional and structural adaptation need to be assessed.

CLIMATE RESILIENCE FOR HYDROPOWER PROJECTS