Impacts of Climate Change on the Hydroelectric Potential of the Ouémé River (Benin) under Different Climatic Flow Scenarios

Abstract

Recent decades have seen significant trends in hydrological regimes, which could become more pronounced over the next century. This study aims to quantify the effects of a ±12% variation in the flow of the Ouémé river, based on climatic and hydrological data for the last 50 years (1970 to 2020), on hydroelectric potential. Water system operators will have to consider adapting their management to mitigate the effects of climate fluctuations. The data was processed in Python 3 using the Panda and NumPy libraries. The results obtained show a better correlation between the water head and flow data, with a better coefficient of determination R<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> (R<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup>≥0.9), and also the different average powers actually obtained and those obtained for the different low and high climate scenarios [(194407.556681W, 136085.289676W, 252729.823685W); (499256.085710W, 349479.259997W, 649032.911423W) and (1.041626.10<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">6</sup>W, 7.291384.10<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">5</sup>W, 1.354114.10<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">6</sup>W)] respectively at Bétérou, Savè and Kétou. This study will analyse the impact of these variations on the hydrological regimes, assess the effect of these changes on the electricity production capacity of the hydroelectric facilities, and identify the adaptation measures needed to optimise production under different scenarios.