The âDefrost for Hydropowerâ project combines SLFâs snow expertise with satellite imagery from Wegawâs cutting-edge geospatial technology and Hydrique Engineers advanced modelling skills, in order to more accurately predict water flow into hydro dams up to 4 months in advance as well as hydrological inflows on a regional scale.
These improved forecast insights would support numerous key areas that are important to industry stakeholders, such as hydroelectricity asset efficiency, trading decision making, due diligence and national sustainability efforts.
Wegaw and Hydrique Ingénieurs HJ Sà rl presented the concept to energy industry decision makers, and have welcomed 9 electricity companies as well as one governmental innovation body to form a new consortium, including:
- Alpiq Holding AG
- EnBAG AG (Energie Brig-Aletsch-Goms)
- EnAlpin AG
- FMV SA (Forces Motrices Valaisannes)
- Groupe E SA
- REPUBLIQUE ET CANTON DE GENĂVE-DĂ©partement du territoire
- Romande Energie
- OIKEN
- Services Industriels de GenĂšve (SIG)
The project started in September 2021 and first datasets were presented at the Steering Committee meeting held in December 2021. Currently, the Wegaw team is successfully converting RADAR satellite information to snow water equivalent (SWE) insights and integrating the data into a seasonal hydrological inflow forecast.
This graphic demonstrates Wegawâs forecasting capabilities of Snow Water Equivalent over a group of fairly low hydrological basins in Valais, Switzerland.
Earlier on this year, the methodology was successfully tested in two hydrological basins in Valais and the project is now moving towards the hydrological modelling phase after which Wegaw will work on the Economic Impact Assessment stage.
This will involve comparing the simulated inflow data with the collected information from the participating hydropower producers in order to identify economic improvement opportunities in production and trading.
âDue to the accuracy of our forecasts and the quality of the available data, our team is on track to complete technical and economic evaluations for the consortium. These new insights could lead to enhancements in electricity trading for the hydropower companies on a seasonal basis, resulting in more competitive energy pricing and potentially a better environmental impact.â Daria LuÌdtke – CTO & Geospatial Technologist at Wegaw
To find out more about the results and what’s next for this collaborative project, go to our website at wegaw.com
