Electricity Production Landscape of Run-of-River Power Plants in Germany

Spatially and temporally resolved data on electricity production from run-of-river plants are very useful to study various aspects of this renewable energy at both the local and regional scale. In the absence of disaggregated feed-in data from such power plants in Germany, it is necessary to apply numerical simulations to determine their electricity production for a desired region and time period. We show how a simulation model can be created using publicly accessible power plant data and information from transmission system operators as model input. The developed physical model is applied to an ensemble of 7974 run-of-river plants in Germany, including those with and without water storage facilities, to simulate their electricity production for the year 2021. The resulting and spatially aggregated simulation results correlate well with the official total electricity feed-in from run-of-river plants in Germany, as well as on smaller spatial scales such as the city of Hamburg. Such disaggregated time series can be used to assess the renewable hydropower generation at different spatial and temporal levels, as each power plant is simulated with its geographical and technical data. Moreover, this study presents the electricity production landscape of run-of-river power plants in Germany as a highly resolved map and at the federal state level with related energy indicators, which enables a better monitoring of this renewable energy. The obtained results also support the expectation that the existing run-of-river plants will play an important role in the future transformation and decarbonization of the German power sector.