Journal
NATURE ENERGY
Volume 2, Issue 10, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/s41560-017-0006-y
Keywords
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Funding
- FP7 [308329]
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Hydropower is the most important renewable energy source to date, providing over 72% of all renewable electricity globally. Yet, only limited information is available on the global potential supply of hydropower and the associated costs. Here we provide a high-resolution assessment of the technical and economic potential of hydropower at a near-global scale. Using 15 x 15 discharge and 3 x 3 digital elevation maps, we built virtual hydropower installations at >3.8 million sites across the globe and calculated their potential using cost optimization methods. This way we identified over 60,000 suitable sites, which together represent a remaining global potential of 9.49 PWh yr(-1) below US$0.50 kWh(-1). The largest remaining potential is found in Asia Pacific (39%), South America (25%) and Africa (24%), of which a large part can be produced at low cost (
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