Assessing hydropower potential under future scenarios using WILIAM, an Integrated Assessment Mode Ecology of Environmental Change

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The ‘Low-carbon society: an enhanced modelling tool for the transition to sustainability’ (LOCOMOTION) project aims to design a new IAM (Integrated Assessment Model) to provide policymakers and relevant stakeholders with a reliable and practical modelling system to assess the feasibility, effectiveness, costs and ramifications of different sustainability policy options. By doing so, LOCOMOTION will help them to identify the most effective transition pathways towards a low-carbon society.

The WILIAM (“Within limits”) model includes an Environmental module covering the Land, Water and a Climate submodule. The Environmental module has connections between the other modules, in particular with the Economy and Energy module, considering the diverse renewable energy systems (biomass, hydro, marine, solar, wind, etc.). The water module considers two components: demand and availability. The availability of water resources influences the potential for hydropower production. This variable is computed using the potential production from reservoirs as well as run-of-river hydropower plants, for the 35 regions of LOCOMOTION.