Climate Risk and Adaptation Assessment TA-6598 BHU: Renewable Energy for Climate Resilience REPORT 222 CLIENT Asian Development Bank AUTHORS Dr Corjan Nolet Dr Arthur Lutz DATE April 2021 1 TA-6598 BHU: Renewable Energy for Climate Resilience Climate Risk and Adaptation Assessment FutureWater Report 222 Client Asian Development Bank Authors Dr Corjan Nolet – Remote Sensing and GIS expert (
[email protected]) Dr Arthur Lutz – Senior Hydrologist & Climate Change Expert (
[email protected]) Date April 2021 ADDRESS FutureWater B.V. Costerweg 1V 6702 AA Wageningen The Netherlands TELEPHONE +31 317 460 050 WEBSITE www.futurewater.eu 2 WEBSITE Executive Summary Bhutan's power sector almost exclusively relies on hydropower generation. Hydropower, however, is vulnerable to climate change and natural disasters caused by climate change. The first deployment of non-hydro renewables at utility scale in Bhutan will be the first step to diversify the power generation portfolio, increase the resilience against severe weather events such as droughts, and complement the hydropower generation profile during the dry season. Other renewable energy resources such as solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind can complement hydropower in forming a more diversified electricity generation portfolio, which is, in healthy mix, resilient to changes in seasonal weather patterns and weather extremes that can adversely affect power supply. For this project ADB develops 2 solar and one wind plant. The objectives of this Climate Risk and Adaptation assessment (CRA) are two-fold: 1) Validate the underlying rationale for diversification of Bhutan’s energy generation portfolio. The rationale is that more unreliable flows under climate change adversely affect the hydropower generation, in particular in the low flow season outside the monsoon season.