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APPLICATION OF MULTI-CRITERIA EVALUATION TO IMPROVE THE EFFICIENCY OF THE COMBINED VOLGA ENERGY CASCADE

Alexander Ivanov, Rodney Stevens, Carlos Duque, Onwusameka Ogbowuokara

Abstract

The Volga River is today a cascade of lowland reservoirs. This allows flood prevention, river-sea navigation and hydropower generation. There are also disadvantages, such as the flooding of fertile floodplain lands, a decrease in water quality and drastic algal blooms in the summer season. Due to the problems triggered by the current system, alternative solutions have been proposed that include a decrease in the amount of water stored and a reduction in energy production being, which can be compensated with floating solar panels and pumped storage plants near the existing hydropower plants. As changes in the system can have multiple consequences at different scales and variables that need to be considered (land use changes, low carbon energy production, ecological impacts), a multi-criteria evaluation has been applied to consider different alternatives. The construction of a cascade of integrated facilities of renewable energy was compared with an improved version of the project proposal. The usefulness of best practices is measured by variables that can be quantified following the SMART criteria. From this analysis emerges a number of variables with a strong impact on the system, such as the price of electricity generated, flooded and flood-free area of floodplains, guaranteed fairway depth, harvested biomass of blooming algae, health risk mitigation, and carbon emissions. All these variables would need to be taken into account for deciphering what system should be implemented in the future along the Volga River.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgem2021v/3.2/s12.10

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