Thank you for your interest in the Hydropower Potential Assessment Tool (HPAT) (written in Matlab). HPAT is an integrated distributed hydrologic model and function to estimate run-of-river hydropower potential at one location or over a gridded spatial domain. The methods implemented in this package are described in:

1. Mosier, Thomas M., 2015, “Characterizing Linkages Between the Climate, Cryosphere, and Impacts on Run-of-River Hydropower in Data-Sparse Mountain Environments.” Dissertation. Oregon State University.

2. Mosier, T., Sharp, K.V., Hill, D.F., 2016, "The hydropower potential assessment tool (HPAT): evaluation of run-of-river resource potential for any global land area and application to Oregon, USA," Renewable Energy, doi:10.1016/j.renene.2016.06.002.

 

The three primary inputs to HPAT are:

  • Gridded climate time-series (in ESRI ASCII or NetCDF format)
  • Digital Elevation Model (DEM) (must be same resolution as climate grids
  • Streamflow data for calibration

The gridded climate time-series can be produced using the Downscaling Package (also distributed on the Global Climate Data website) or alternate means (e.g. using Micromet; Liston and Elder, Journal of Hydrometeorology, 2006). Streamflow data are needed to calibrate the hydrologic model that is implemented within HPAT. Streamflow data should be formatted as a CSV file and be in units of cubic meters per second. An example streamflow observation file is contained in the HPAT package. The HPAT package is distributed with inputs required to implement it for Wolverine glacier, Alaska.

 

HPAT is available upon filling out the form below.