In the model hydropower is split into reservoir hydro, run-of-river and pumped storage plants. The main hydro capacity and production data is taken from IEA Electricity Information, supplemented by EURELECTRIC Power Statistics and Trends 2011 and NORDEL (2008) for run-of-river. NORDEL only has data up until 2008, but we assume that the 2008-data are representative for 2009.
To estimate the hydropower potential in each model country data from the World Atlas and Industry Guide (published by The International Journal on Hydropower and Dams) was used. This source provides a gross, technical and economic hydropower potential for all the model countries. The economic potential is defined as the portion of the gross theoretical potential that could be or has already been developed under local economic conditions with current technology. It is not clear whether the economic potential includes sites that would be unacceptable to develop due to social or environmental restrictions. NVE (2011) has more specific data for Norway which shows the share of the economic potential that is protected and unlikely to be developed in the future. For Norway this means that the remaining potential is reduced by more than half. It is likely that these kinds of restrictions apply also in other countries, so to ensure that the hydropower potential is not overestimated it has been reduced by half for all model countries.
The inflow capacity in a hydrological normal year is defined as the amount of precipitation that reaches the catchment area and is available for hydropower production. For Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland data from NORDEL (2008) had been used. For the other model countries IEA data (Electricity Information Statistics database) is used to create an inflow proxy. The result is a country-specific estimate of inflow capacity in a hydrological normal year. This is split between reservoir and run-of-river using several sources; EURELECTRIC Power Statistics and Trends 2011, ENTSO-E and Hydro Dam Atlas.
