Feasibility Concern|Hydropower Capacity

Why this criterion? This criterion flags scenarios that assume a deployment of hydropower capacity that is inconsistent with near-term projections.

Near-term upper and lower capacity projections can be derived from existing capacities and from current project announcements and known project lead times. Robust upper projections can be made because projects take at least 5 years to plan and construct and therefore will not be operational by 2030 if not yet announced by today. Robust lower projections can be made based on exisiting capacities and because retirement rates can reasonably be assumed to be low.

Specifically, hydropower plants take 4–7 years to construct (for medium-sized projects) and up to 15 years (for large projects) to plan and construct. Small projects that can be completed within less than 4 years make up less than 3% of all projects planned globally in 2021.

For details on hydropower project lead times, see the Hydropower Special Market Report by the International Energy Agency (IEA, 2021b).

Why this threshold? Data on hydropower plant capacities was published by the IEA (2021a).

The capacity data is published in three categories:
• Operational: in operation in 2021
• Expected: expected to be operational in 2030 under normal conditions.
• Accelerated: expected to be operational in 2030 under accelerated efforts.

Based on this capacity data, we assume the following global thresholds for 2030:
• Lower threshold, high concern: 10% less than hydropower capacity (without pumped storage) that was operational in 2021.
• Lower threshold, medium concern: 5% less than hydropower capacity (without pumped storage) that is expected to be operational in 2030 under normal conditions.
• Upper threshold, medium concern: 5% more than hydropower and pumped storage capacity that is expected to be operational in 2030 under accelerated efforts.
• Upper threshold, high concern: 43% more than hydropower capacity (without pumped storage) that is expected to be operational in 2030 under accelerated efforts, plus 10% more than pumped storage capacity that is expected to be operational in 2030 under normal conditions.

Moreover, we assume the following regional thresholds for 2030:
• Lower threshold, medium concern: 40% less than hydropower capacity (without pumped storage) that is expected to be operational in 2030 under normal conditions.
• Upper threshold, medium concern: 82% more than hydropower capacity (without pumped storage) that is expected to be operational in 2030 under accelerated efforts, plus 10% more than pumped storage capacity that is expected to be operational in 2030 under normal conditions.

WorldGeneric regionsModel-native regions

Loading ITables v2.8.1 from the internet... (need help?)

R5R9R10

Loading ITables v2.8.1 from the internet... (need help?)

AIM 3.0C3IAM 3.0CGEM-ESM 1.0COFFEE 1.6GCAM 9.1GEM-E3 V2026IMACLIM 2.0IMAGE 3.4MEESA v1.4MESSAGEix-GLOBIOM 2.1-R12MINES 0.1.0OPEN-PROM 2.2POLES 2.4REMIND-MAgPIE 3.7-4.14WITCH 6.0

Loading ITables v2.8.1 from the internet... (need help?)

Reference data

Dataset	Source	Description
`IEA-HSMR-2021-high-proj`	IEA (2021b)	Custom projections based on IEA (2021b) with details documented in the description of the `Feasibility Concern\|Hydropower Capacity` criterion.
`IEA-HSMR-2021-low-proj`	IEA (2021b)	Custom projections based on IEA (2021b) with details documented in the description of the `Feasibility Concern\|Hydropower Capacity` criterion.

Sources

Identifier	Bibliographic information	Links
`IEA-HSMR-2021`	IEA. Hydropower Special Market Report: Analysis and Forecast to 2030. International Energy Agency, Paris, France, 2021b.	URL PDF
`IEA-HDE-2021`	IEA. Hydropower Data Explorer. International Energy Agency, Paris, France, 2021a.	URL