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Journal of Environmental Accounting and Management
António Mendes Lopes (editor), Jiazhong Zhang(editor)
António Mendes Lopes (editor)

University of Porto, Portugal

Email: aml@fe.up.pt

Jiazhong Zhang (editor)

School of Energy and Power Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province 710049, China

Fax: +86 29 82668723 Email: jzzhang@mail.xjtu.edu.cn


The Development of Hydropower Resources at American Watershed Scale and Its Enlightenment to China

Journal of Environmental Accounting and Management 4(3) (2016) 301--316 | DOI:10.5890/JEAM.2016.09.005

Liang Chen, Xin Sui, Zhaokai Dong, Sainan Wu, Hong Zhou

Center of Hydropower Sustainable Development, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing 100038, P R China

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Abstract

Hydropower resources are priority areas of energy construction in various countries throughout the world, and are also important measures for China by which to ensure the energy supply and achieve the development goal of non-fossil energy. Developed countries, in particular the United States, have rich experience in the development and construction of hydropower resources. Therefore, understanding the experience of the United States in the development of hydropower resources bears important enlightenment to the development of hydropower resources in China. This paper gives a systematic review of the survey data previously and newly released by the US Department of Energy; based on this, analyzes the development status of hydropower resources of all watersheds in the United States and the development potential of newly increased hydropower resources; and recounts the development level of hydropower resources at American watershed. At the same time, in consideration to the implementation of efficiency increase and capacity expansion planning in the United States in the future, this paper further predicts the development level of hydropower resources at all watersheds in the United States after this planning has been implemented. Finally, the paper summarizes the experience of the United States in the development of hydropower resources, along with its enlightenment to the development of hydropower resources of China. This study shows that electric construction strategies for the priority development of hydropower, introduction of key constraints to assess the development potential of hydropower resources, and efficiency increase and capacity expansion transformation to intensify the hydropower development are powerful guarantees of hydropower development in the United States, and these also provide important reference value for developing the hydropower resources of China.

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the National Post Doctor Foundation of China (Grant No. 2014M561099) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41471466 and 71673029). The authors are also grateful for the anonymous reviewers and the editor in helping improve the manuscript.

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