The project CLIM2POWER aims at developing a climate service including state-of-the art seasonal climate forecasts in the planning of the operation of the power systems. This work presents part of the project, addressing the forecasting of the hydropower generation in a case study area, the Portuguese part of the transboundary Douro River basin. Rainfall-runoff modelling was performed on a daily scale using three ensemble members of seasonal climate data (six months) for Portuguese territory crossed with three daily inflow scenarios from Spanish territory defined according to historical observed data. The obtained results reflect the fact that seasonal climate forecast present a wide variation of scenarios and also the fact that hydropower production in Portuguese territory is highly dependent on transboundary inflows. On the other hand, the implemented approach successfully produced consistent runoff and hydropower production results although improvements on the identification of the most probable scenarios are yet required.

Hydropower plays a key role in the clean energy transition. The demand for sustainable hydropower in the energy market is growing. Today, sustainable hydropower is an achievable goal if the Hydropower Sustainability Standard is applied to hydropower assets. The results of the PEN@Hydropower Education Survey, which was analyzed in the previous chapter, provide a comprehensive overview of the hydropower education system across Europe. The study identified limited capacity building in sustainable hydropower as the main gap in educational activities. Consequently, the implementation of sustainable hydropower in the energy market is limited by a lack of human resources with the requisite application of know-how and skills. A framework for capacity-building in sustainable hydropower has been developed, applied and tested by PEN@Hydropower in order to train the new generation inmanner that allows it to fill the identified educational gap. The framework for capacity-building is put into practice in a face-to-face training school on sustainable hydropower. PEN@Hydropower organized five training schools across Europe, spanning from east to west and from north to south. A total of 111 early career investigators (ECIs) participated in all five training schools. It should be noted that around a quarter of the participants were from industry. The Training Schools on Sustainable Hydropower organized by PEN@Hydropower contribute to the transfer of theoretical knowledge and practical skills to the new generation, preparing them for teamwork at a European level. The capacity-building materials and experience gained by PEN@Hydropower members in sustainable hydropower led to the initiation of theoretical and practical knowledge transfer nuclei in European universities. Investing in the training of the next generation of hydropower experts paves the way towards a sustainable society.