Extreme Weather and Climate Vulnerabilities of the Electric Grid: A Summary of Environmental Sensitivity Quantification Methods

Dumas, Melissa; Kc, Binita; Cunliff, Colin

doi:10.2172/1558514

Cited by 23 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 42 publications

(71 reference statements)

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“…Future work could incorporate these factors in our modeling framework and would be particularly important for understanding the climate-induced impacts on low-carbon power systems. Finally, in this work, we do not capture system vulnerabilities to worsened extreme weather events under climate change, such as hurricanes, floods, and wildfires. − Models that capture these vulnerabilities typically use robust or stochastic optimization methods, which are not computationally tractable at the scale of our system. We leave the integration of such impacts to future work.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate-Induced Tradeoffs in Planning and Operating Costs of a Regional Electricity System

Fonseca

Craig

Jaramillo

et al. 2021

Environ. Sci. Technol.

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Electricity grid planners design the system to supply electricity to end-users reliably and affordably. Climate change threatens both objectives through potentially compounding supply- and demand-side climate-induced impacts. Uncertainty surrounds each of these future potential impacts. Given long planning horizons, system planners must weigh investment costs against operational costs under this uncertainty. Here, we developed a comprehensive and coherent integrated modeling framework combining physically based models with cost-minimizing optimization models in the power system. We applied this modeling framework to analyze potential tradeoffs in planning and operating costs in the power grid due to climate change in the Southeast U.S. in 2050. We find that planning decisions that do not account for climate-induced impacts would result in a substantial increase in social costs associated with loss of load. These social costs are a result of under-investment in new capacity and capacity deratings of thermal generators when we included climate change impacts in the operation stage. These results highlight the importance of including climate change effects in the planning process.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate-Induced Tradeoffs in Planning and Operating Costs of a Regional Electricity System

Fonseca

Craig

Jaramillo

et al. 2021

Environ. Sci. Technol.

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“…Due to the industry reliance on navigable waterways for transportation of goods, and surface water for facility operation (as previously discussed, for both hydroelectric and thermal generators), production and processing facilities are often water adjacent. The proximity of facilities to surface water bodies makes them susceptible to damage from fluvial flooding, extreme weather events (such as hurricanes) and SLR (e.g., Allen‐Dumas et al, 2019; Dell et al, 2014; Sichani et al, 2020). In conjunction, as urban populations continue to expand and develop within river valleys, transmission lines are often routed adjacent and parallel to rivers and creeks, or must cross major waterways, to carry the electricity from the production facilities to transmission towers, substations, and homes (Da Luz et al, 2015).…”

Section: Prior Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Potential water‐related risks to the electric power industry associated with changing surface water conditions

Hersh,

Jackson,

Menninger

et al. 2023

J American Water Resour Assoc

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This study identifies and summarizes potential risks to operations, regulatory compliance, supply chains, and infrastructure of the electric power industry from changing surface water conditions resulting from global climate change. The results help inform companies/utilities seeking to incorporate climate change risk in their planning and decision‐making processes by ranking risk severity and likelihood of occurrence on both a regional basis and by risk receptor. The assessment includes identification of potential risks to: (1) thermal generating, (2) hydroelectric, (3) land‐based renewable generating, and (4) transmission and distribution assets. These risks may result from such projected changes as reduced water availability (e.g., for hydroelectric or once‐through cooling), increased water temperatures (e.g., decrease in cooling efficiency, inability to meet discharge permit conditions), increased flood severity (e.g., increased streambank erosion and/or damage to river‐adjacent infrastructure), and decreased water quality (e.g., from increased transport of sediment and dissolved solids). The potential risks identified from this qualitative risk‐assessment are documented in a graphical format depicting both severity and likelihood. This approach allows for comparison of risks across a portfolio and for future prioritization of adaptation strategies. A total of 32 risks were identified in the study, including nine risks to infrastructure, six risks to operations, four risks to supply chain, and 13 environmental/regulatory risks.

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“…A collection of the most accessible quantification methodologies for determining grid component vulnerability to climate and weather hazards (e.g. heatwave, windstorm, ice storm, flood) is summarised in [67 ]. It should be noted that certain components have more impacts on the resilience of the whole system to the extreme event that others.…”

Section: Enhancing Resiliencementioning

confidence: 99%

Resilient distribution system leveraging distributed generation and microgrids: a review

Liu

Jiang

Ollis

et al. 2020

IET Energy Systems Integration

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Extreme Weather and Climate Vulnerabilities of the Electric Grid: A Summary of Environmental Sensitivity Quantification Methods

Cited by 23 publications

References 42 publications

Climate-Induced Tradeoffs in Planning and Operating Costs of a Regional Electricity System

Climate-Induced Tradeoffs in Planning and Operating Costs of a Regional Electricity System

Potential water‐related risks to the electric power industry associated with changing surface water conditions

Resilient distribution system leveraging distributed generation and microgrids: a review

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