Evaluating the complementarity of solar, wind and hydropower to mitigate the impact of El Nino Southern Oscillation in Latin America

Latin America has the largest share of renewable energy for power generation in the world, but has historically been dependent on hydropower, and is vulnerable to long-term phenomena like the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The region is currently experiencing a steady increase in gas-based power generation along with a rapid growth in non-hydro renewables, mainly aimed at improving reliability. But exploiting complementarities between hydropower and other renewables could offer additional benefits. This paper investigates to what extent improved deployment of wind turbines and solar photovoltaic cells (PV), aimed at complementing existing hydropower, could mitigate the impacts of ENSO in Latin America. We use a meteorological reanalysis dataset to model the variations in wind-, solar- and hydropower throughout the entire 20th century and their association with different ENSO phases in the same period. A statistical algorithm is then used to identify locations at national and regional levels offering the maximal level of complementarity. The results show that adding 136 GW of wind- and solar-power with high-complementarity has the potential to cost-effectively compensate the fluctuations of hydropower and reduce the variability of renewable power not only during drought ENSO phases but also outside ENSO events. Benefits include: (i) an increase of up to 5-fold the minimum threshold of renewable power available every month, (ii) a reduction of up to 65% in the variability of renewable power generation, and (iii) reaching a levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) of 0.09-0.23 $/kWh, which is comparable to that of new gas plants. (c) 2021 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Automated summary

Latin America has the largest share of renewable energy for power generation in the world and is currently experiencing growth in gas-based power generation along with non-hydro renewables to improve reliability. By improving the deployment of wind turbines and solar PV cells to complement existing hydropower, the impacts of ENSO in Latin America can be mitigated.