The latest conclusions of the IPCC assessments were published in 2022. They show a confirmed global warming of +1.1°C compared with the pre-industrial era. Projections for 2050 predict a warming trend of +1.6°C to +2.4°C, and +1.4°C to +4.4°C by 2090, depending on our ability to reduce - or not - global greenhouse gas emissions.
These global values mask another reality: differential warming on the continents is much higher than on the oceans. Combined with possible changes in precipitation patterns, this trend will have potentially significant effects on water resource systems in our territories and on hydroelectricity, with varying degrees of impact depending on the region, and which could translate into risks or opportunities for current and future systems.
Denis Aelbrecht will review the foreseeable impacts of climate change on average hydrological regimes and in extreme situations, which could lead to profound transformations in supply-demand balances for water resource systems and hydroelectricity. It will also address the levers and countermeasures needed to strengthen the resilience of territories, water resource systems and power systems to these impacts.
With regard to storage and flexibility, the presentation will attempt to show how hydroelectricity - a low-carbon, flexible, controllable, storable, sovereign and competitive energy - has considerable assets to contribute to the ZeroNet ambition of electricity systems, an energy that has been forgotten for too long on the European and global energy and climate policy agendas. As the International Energy Agency pointed out in 2021 in its special report on hydropower (*): "Hydropower is the 'forgotten giant' of clean electricity, and it needs to be put squarely back on the energy and climate agenda" - Dr Fatih Birol, IEA Executive Director.
(*) IEA (2021). Hydropower special market report - https://www.iea.org/reports/hydropower-special-market-report
Speaker presentation
Dr. Denis AELBRECHT - President of the French national committee on dams & reservoirs (CFBR or French-COLD)
Dr. Denis AELBRECHT works with Electricité de France (EDF) as Head of Technology and Deputy Technical Director in the Hydro Engineering Center (CIH) of EDF. His current activity covers the technical supervision of EDF-CIH engineering activities in the following aspects: hydropower assets development and maintenance, incl. PSH, dam safety, hydraulic structures design, flood risk management & flood control, reservoir sedimentation and environmental management of Hydro assets, marine renewable energy development ... He also manages R&D and technology innovation programs of EDF Hydro Engineering Center.
He joined EDF in 1995, and got successive positions in EDF as Research-Engineer (1995-2000), Project Manager (2000-2002), Group Manager (2002-2005). He was Senior Project Manager in a joined EPRI-EDF R&D program on water & energy nexus in Palo Alto, USA (2005-2007). He is now with EDF-CIH since 2007, where he formerly worked as Manager of the Hydraulics Service (2008-2014), before moving to a position of Expert in Hydraulics engineering (2014-2017) and his current position since 2017.
He graduated from Grenoble-INP / ENSHMG engineering school (France) in 1991, and got a PhD in Hydraulics & Coastal Engineering at the University of Grenoble in 1995.
He has been elected in June 2022 as President of the French national committee on dams & reservoirs (CFBR or French-COLD), and acts as Chairman of Technical Committee Y on "Global Climate Change, Dams and Reservoirs" of the International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD). He is also very active in the International Hydropower Association (IHA): Climate resilience guide for the Hydropower sector (2019) ; International Forum for Pumped-Storage-Hydro (2021).
He received the "Grand Prix d'Hydrotechnique" from the French Société Hydrotechnique de France (SHF) in 2019.
Introducing the Moderators
Perig L'Haridon has been with EDF for 15 years. Currently team leader for the development of major hydroelectric projects in France and abroad, Perig was previously in charge of hydroelectric schemes in the Alps.
He also spent seven years with the Upstream/Downstream Optimization & Trading Division, working on energymarkets fromshort-term optimization to long-term asset management.
Michel Cochet worked in the world of electrical energy, first at EDF, then at Cegelec and finally at Siemens Energy .
Michel spent over twenty years working in export markets, notably in South-East Asia, where he lived for more than six years. On his return to Europe, he worked for Siemens, developing major projects (in particular gas-fired combined-cycle power plants) for Poweo, EON France and Direct Energie (now Total Energie).
Passionate about innovation, he now devotes histime to advising start-ups in the energy sector. A member of the Board of Directors of theAlumni Association, he co-chairs the GP "Numérique et Environnement, leads the GP "Énergie and co-edits the Revue TELECOM.
