Recent studies have shown that aerosols can substantially influence temperature,
precipitation, and snowpack in California through their direct, indirect, and deposition
effects. The impact of aerosols on these meteorological variables can influence
hydropower reservoir inflow, which can in turn impact hydroelectricity generation in
California. This project developed a fully coupled aerosol-meteorology-snowpack
forecasting model by integrating a weather research and forecasting model, a statistical
inflow forecast model using dynamic regression method, and a hydroelectric power
plant optimization model (Vista) to quantify the impact of aerosols on hydropower
generation in California.
Aerosols warm the California mountaintops through aerosol-snow interaction by local
dust, cool the lower elevation areas through aerosol-radiation interaction, and reduce
precipitation and snowpack in California. The researchers developed a comprehensive
framework to quantify the impact of aerosols on inflow into the Big Creek Hydroelectric
System. The developed framework seamlessly integrates the Weather Research and
Forecasting Model with chemistry (WFR-Chem) and a statistical inflow forecast model.
The simulation results show that the presence of aerosols results in a significant
reduction of annual reservoir inflow (flow of water) by 4-14 percent.
The research team calculated the impact of aerosols on hydropower generation and
revenue by feeding the inflow forecasts of the lakes to the Big Creek Hydroelectric
System both with and without considering the impact of aerosols into the Vista Decision
Support System. From the simulation results, researchers found that aerosols reduce
inflows into the reservoirs of Big Creek hydroelectric system by 1-10 percent. The
presence of aerosols causes $2.8 million loss in revenue in a water year for Southern
California Edison, providing more justification for stricter environmental regulations to
reduce anthropogenic aerosol emissions.
Author(s)
Nanpeng Yu, Farzana Kabir, Longtao Wu, Yu Gu, Jonathan H. Jiang Hui Su, Weixin Yao, Balakrishna Sastry
