Abstract

MEZA-PRIETO, Bertha  and  APARICIO, Javier. Evaluation of small-scale hydropower potential in watersheds using a rainfall-runoff model. Tecnol. cienc. agua [online]. 2018, vol.9, n.1, pp.69-87.  Epub Nov 24, 2020. ISSN 2007-2422.  https://doi.org/10.24850/j-tyca-2018-01-05.

One way of promoting renewable energy-based projects, such as the small-scale hydroelectric systems, is to determine viable placements for them, as well as the exploitable energy. This work presents a simple method to estimate the hydropower potential in watersheds. The main advantage of this method is that the continuous hydrological modeling is performed using free software. The delimitation and cartographic processing of the subbasins, as well as the longitudinal profile tracing of the riverbed is performed using the ArcGIS 10.1 software. The criteria for the available sites selection were established as: river slope of at least 3%, and vertical drop of 3 meters or more. A common precipitation and average daily flow period is chosen to calibrate and validate the Soil Moisture Accounting (SMA) semi-distributed hydrological model. The SMA method is a suitable tool to estimate the mean streamflow in ungauged watersheds. In the Alto Amacuzac River Basin, 578 sites with a gross hydropower potential of 49.2 MW were found. The methodology used is practical because it only needs basic knowledge of geographic information systems and uses HEC-HMS. The economical evaluation shows initial investments of 3,672,636.00 Mexican pesos on average. With these costs, investments may be feasible as long as a long-term plan is considered. The streamflow Q90 is a good alternative to design run-of-river small hydropower plants.

Keywords : hydropower potential; small hydropower plants; Soil Moisture Accounting (SMA) model; flow-duration curve; Alto Amacuzac River.

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