Abstract
Power system reliability is sensitive to climate-driven variations in both energy demand and water availability, yet the combined effect of these impacts is rarely evaluated. Here we show that combined climate change impacts on loads and hydropower generation may have a transformative effect on the nature and seasonality of power shortfall risk in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. Under climate change, potential shortfall events occur more readily, but are significantly less severe in nature. A seasonal reversal in shortfall risk occurs: winter shortfalls are eradicated due to reduced building heating demands, while summer shortfalls multiply as increased peak loads for day-time cooling coincide with impaired hydropower generation. Many of these summer shortfalls go unregistered when climate change impacts on loads and hydropower dispatch are analyzed in isolation—highlighting an important role of compound events.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 8 |
| Journal | Nature Communications |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 1 2019 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Funding
We acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme's Working Group on Coupled Modelling, which is responsible for CMIP, and we thank National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) for producing and making available their model output. For CMIP, the U.S. Department of Energy's Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison provided coordinating support and led development of software infrastructure in partnership with the Global Organization for Earth System Science Portals. This work was supported by the Office of Energy Policy and System Analysis of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is operated by Battelle for the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract DE-AC05-76RL01830.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| U.S. Department of Energy | DE-AC05-76RL01830 |
| Office of Energy |
