Characterizing renewable energy compound events across Europe using a logistic regression‐based approach

Abstract

The transition towards decarbonized power systems requires accounting for the impacts of the climate variability and climate change on renewable energy sources. With the growing share of wind and solar power in the European power system and their strong weather dependence, balancing the energy demand and supply becomes a great challenge. We characterize energy compound events, defined as periods of simultaneous low renewable production of wind and solar power, and high electricity demand. Using a logistic regression approach, we examine the influence of meteorological and atmospheric drivers on energy compound events. Moreover, we assess the spatial coherence of energy compound events that pose a major challenge within an interconnected power grid, as they can affect multiple countries simultaneously. On average, European countries are exposed to winter energy compound events more than twice per year. The combination of extremely low temperatures and low wind speeds is associated with a higher probability of occurrence of energy compound events. Furthermore, we show that blocked weather regimes have a major influence on energy compound events. In particular, Greenland and European blocking lead to widespread energy compound events that affect multiple countries at the same time. Our results highlight the relevance of weather regimes resulting in synchronous spatial energy compound events, which might pose a greater risk within a potential fully interconnected European grid.energy compound events, extremes, renewable energies, weather regimes | INTRODUCTIONClimate change mitigation strategies are driving a global transition towards low carbon energy sources, for which the role of renewable energy is essential (Cronin et al., 2018). To meet the Paris Agreement targets, Europe is undergoing a rapid clean energy transition with an increasing growth in renewable capacity in recent years (IRENA, 2018). Transitioning to a low-carbon energy system will require the impacts of climate variability and

Linking Unserved Energy to Weather Regimes

“…The relation found between ENS events and the weather regimes is in line with previous studies (Grams et al, 2017;van der Wiel et al, 2019a;van der Wiel et al, 2019B;H. C. Bloomfield et al, 2019;Otero et al, 2022;Mockert et al, 2022;Tedesco et al, 2022). Although changes in the absolute values of risk differ between studies, an increase in risk during a winter time period high pressure system over Scandinavia or north-west Europe is seen.…”

“…Although changes in the absolute values of risk differ between studies, an increase in risk during a winter time period high pressure system over Scandinavia or north-west Europe is seen. Where previous work has focused on the relation between weather regimes with renewable energy resource generation (Grams et al, 2017;Ravestein et al, 2018) or the residual load (van der Wiel et al, 2019B; H. C. Bloomfield et al, 2019;Otero et al, 2022;Mockert et al, 2022;Tedesco et al, 2022), we analysed this relation between weather regimes and critical situations identified in full power system simulations. The link between specific weather regimes and ENS can be used to inform policy maker or grid operators in the choices they make.…”

“…For this reason, the use of the four European weather regimes based on a k-means clustering as set out in Michelangeli et al (1995) is still prevalent in many impact studies (e.g. when considering the impact of the variability of weather on the renewable energy resource (van der Wiel et al, 2019B; H. C. Bloomfield et al, 2019;Otero et al, 2022;Tedesco et al, 2022)). On the other hand, when only four weather regimes are used to describe the full variability in surface weather, it is difficult to separate partially mixed signals that are present due to the course classification of the meteorological variability (Grams et al, 2017).…”

“…Therefore, it may be more difficult to supply all energy demand in certain weather regimes than others, potentially leading to ENS (van der Wiel et al, 2019B;H. C. Bloomfield et al, 2019;Otero et al, 2022;Tedesco et al, 2022).…”

Standardised indices to monitor energy droughts

“…Energy production from RES, such as wind and solar power, typically depends heavily on the prevailing weather. Although this means RES replenish naturally, balancing supply and demand in renewable energy systems becomes challenging, since certain weather conditions could result in simultaneously low renewable energy production and high energy demand, leading to shortages in the system (von Bremen, 2010;van der Wiel et al, 2019;Otero et al, 2022a). Raynaud et al (2018) termed these shortages "energy droughts", acknowledging the similarity between shortages in energy systems and the classical notion of a meteorological drought: both represent instances where the amount of a quantity needed to sustain an underlying process far exceeds the amount of this quantity that is produced.…”