Identification of Owan Catchment Run-of-River Hydropower Potential Sites in Benin Owena River Basin Nigeria Using GIS And RS Procedures

Hydropower is recognized internationally as a source of clean, affordable, and reliable energy that has contributed in a significant way to the global energy supply mix but unfortunately, this is not the case in Nigeria considering hydropower potential of 15 GW where only approximately 2 GW (13%) has been harnessed. Nigeria Small Hydropower (SHP) level is low, as less than 0.1 GW out of 3.5 GW SHP potential is available in a country of over 200 million people with potentials of 333BCM of surface water annually which can be used to increase energy access especially in the rural area where the percentage in 2018 is 34. In this study, Natural Resources Conservation Service - Curve Number (NRCS-CN) method which calculates surface runoff volume for a particular rainfall event in a watershed was applied in conjunction with Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information System (GIS). Land Use Land Cover (LULC) classes of Owan Sub-basin were delineated from Landsat 8 satellite Image using Image Classification procedure and integrated with the hydrologic soil group (HSG) of the sub-basin in a GIS environment to obtain runoff Curve Numbers (CNs) for this study. The estimated CNs and rainfall data of Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Information using Artificial Neural Networks - Climate Data Record (PERSIANN – CDR) of the study area for the year 2018 were used to calculate the peak discharges over 125 mapped out points at 2km interval in Owan river. The gauging station data correlates NRCS-CN with a coefficient of 68 % while the Nigerian Meteorological Services Agency (NIMET) data compared with PERSIANN-CDR yielded a 70 % correlation. Using the basin hydrometric indicators of 2% minimum slope and 10m available head which must exist between two points before a site can be considered for ROR hydropower, 20 points were identified in Owan with power range from 423.015kW to 5,456.646kW at 92% available flow exceedance annually. This study revealed that NRCS-CN method combined with RS and GIS can simulate discharge successfully using watershed hydrometry in the absence of weak hydrological data.  Also, owing to a significant degree of agreement between the observed and calculated runoff, the method, and models employed for this study are recommended for field applications in Benin-Owena River Basin, Nigeria at large, and other regions with data scarcity challenges hydrologically. Keywords : run-of-river, hydropower potential, Remote Sensing, Geographic Information System, NRCS-CN model. DOI: 10.7176/CER/12-10-05 Publication date: October 31 st 2020