Analysis of the Climate Impacts on Latin American Hydropower

This thesis is about a quantitative analysis of the climate impacts on Latin American hydropower held at the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris during my six-months internship which turned into an external consultant job. The aim of the work was to understand how the capacity factors of hydroelectric power plants would vary in the 13 selected countries by combining data from different climate models. 5 General Circulation Models and 4 Global Hydrological Models have been analyzed, and 4 Representative Concentration Pathways scenarios have been considered in order to analyze all possible future perspectives. These 80 total combinations have been applied to 17 time-steps comparing the value of the capacity factors in the baseline period 1970-2000 with the values of the 5-years time-steps from 2020 up to 2100. Data analysis is essential to assess climate impacts, to identify similar behaviors among countries and link them to possible common causes, in order to provide potential solutions to enhance climate resilience. Data analysis is combined with a qualitative analysis about climate risks, and a policy analysis that compares Latin American countries according to the coverage of energy sector in their National Adaptation Plans.