Shift in seasonal climate patterns likely to impact residential energy consumption in the United States

Deeksha Rastogi; James Scott Holladay; Katherine J. Evans; Ben L. Preston; Moetasim Ashfaq

doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ab22d2

Shift in seasonal climate patterns likely to impact residential energy consumption in the United States

Deeksha Rastogi, James Scott Holladay, Katherine J. Evans, Ben L. Preston, Moetasim Ashfaq

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

21 Scopus citations

Abstract

We develop a highly-resolved ensemble of climate simulations and empirical relationships between weather and household energy consumption to provide one of the most detailed estimates to date for potential climate-driven changes in the United States residential energy demand under the highest greenhouse gas emissions pathway. Our results indicate that more intense and prolonged warm conditions will drive an increase in electricity demand while a shorter and milder cold season will reduce natural gas demand by the mid 21st century. The environmental conditions that favor more cooling degree days in summer and reduced heating degree days in winter are driven by changes in daily maximum temperatures and daily minimum temperatures in the respective seasons. Our results also indicate that climate-driven change can potentially reverse impacts of a projected decrease in rural population on residential energy demand. These projected changes in climate-driven energy demand have implications for future energy planning and management.

Original language	English
Article number	074006
Journal	Environmental Research Letters
Volume	14
Issue number	7
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab22d2
State	Published - Jul 5 2019

Funding

This research was supported as part of the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) formerly known as Accelerated Climate Modeling for Energy (ACME) project, funded by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research. The research also received support from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Project Development funds and Regional and Global Climate Modeling program of the US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science. Support for model simulations, data storage and analysis is provided by the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), which is supported by the Office of Science of the US Department of Energy (DOE) under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725. This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DEAC05-00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/ downloads/doepublicaccess-plan).

Keywords

Energy demand
degree days
regional climate change

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1088/1748-9326/ab22d2

Cite this

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abstract = "We develop a highly-resolved ensemble of climate simulations and empirical relationships between weather and household energy consumption to provide one of the most detailed estimates to date for potential climate-driven changes in the United States residential energy demand under the highest greenhouse gas emissions pathway. Our results indicate that more intense and prolonged warm conditions will drive an increase in electricity demand while a shorter and milder cold season will reduce natural gas demand by the mid 21st century. The environmental conditions that favor more cooling degree days in summer and reduced heating degree days in winter are driven by changes in daily maximum temperatures and daily minimum temperatures in the respective seasons. Our results also indicate that climate-driven change can potentially reverse impacts of a projected decrease in rural population on residential energy demand. These projected changes in climate-driven energy demand have implications for future energy planning and management.",

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AU - Rastogi, Deeksha

AU - Holladay, James Scott

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AU - Preston, Ben L.

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N2 - We develop a highly-resolved ensemble of climate simulations and empirical relationships between weather and household energy consumption to provide one of the most detailed estimates to date for potential climate-driven changes in the United States residential energy demand under the highest greenhouse gas emissions pathway. Our results indicate that more intense and prolonged warm conditions will drive an increase in electricity demand while a shorter and milder cold season will reduce natural gas demand by the mid 21st century. The environmental conditions that favor more cooling degree days in summer and reduced heating degree days in winter are driven by changes in daily maximum temperatures and daily minimum temperatures in the respective seasons. Our results also indicate that climate-driven change can potentially reverse impacts of a projected decrease in rural population on residential energy demand. These projected changes in climate-driven energy demand have implications for future energy planning and management.

AB - We develop a highly-resolved ensemble of climate simulations and empirical relationships between weather and household energy consumption to provide one of the most detailed estimates to date for potential climate-driven changes in the United States residential energy demand under the highest greenhouse gas emissions pathway. Our results indicate that more intense and prolonged warm conditions will drive an increase in electricity demand while a shorter and milder cold season will reduce natural gas demand by the mid 21st century. The environmental conditions that favor more cooling degree days in summer and reduced heating degree days in winter are driven by changes in daily maximum temperatures and daily minimum temperatures in the respective seasons. Our results also indicate that climate-driven change can potentially reverse impacts of a projected decrease in rural population on residential energy demand. These projected changes in climate-driven energy demand have implications for future energy planning and management.

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Shift in seasonal climate patterns likely to impact residential energy consumption in the United States

Abstract

Funding

Keywords

UN SDGs

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