Climate risks to hydropower supply in eastern and southern Africa

The importance of hydropower electricity generation capacity is set
to grow in many countries in eastern and southern Africa. There are
43 large-scale (more than 50 megawatt) hydropower projects planned
up to 2030 in both regions, which would supply over 31 gigawatts of
additional capacity. In many countries hydropower is a significant
source of electricity generation and will continue to be so.
Approximately 82% of the new hydropower capacity in eastern
Africa is planned for the Nile basin, and 89% of southern Africa’s for
the Zambezi basin. Within each basin these plants would be vulnerable
to the same climatic variations as their locations and river basins
share similar patterns of rainfall. Projected changes in the seasonal
distribution and amount of rainfall due to climate change could result in
even larger variations.
This exposure could lead to impacts on the generation performance
of multiple plants at the same time, with concurrent and potentially
significant knock-on effects through domestic and regional power
systems, and could adversely affect socioeconomic development.