More homogeneous wind conditions under strong climate change decrease the potential for inter-state balancing of electricity in Europe

Wohland, Jan; Reyers, Mark; Weber, Juliane; Witthaut, Dirk

doi:10.5194/esd-8-1047-2017

Cited by 42 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…Other studies have tried to assess the impact of climate change on a renewable power system as well. Wohland et al [20] focus, using EURO-CORDEX ensemble members, on wind alone and find the quality of wind power to decrease, i.e., spatial correlation to increase and low wind situations to worsen. Both effects likely contribute to the increasing share of PV generation in the cost-optimal case, as observed by our study.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of climate change on a cost-optimal highly renewable European electricity network

et al. 2018

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We use three ensemble members of the EURO-CORDEX project and their data on surface wind speeds, solar irradiation as well as water runoff with a spatial resolution of 12 km and a temporal resolution of 3 hours under representative concentration pathway 8.5 (associated with a strong climate change and a temperature increase of 2.6 to 4.8 • C until the end of the century) until 2100 to investigate the impact of climate change on wind, solar and hydro resources and consequently on a highly renewable and cost-optimal European power system. The weather data is transformed into power, different aspects such as capacity factors and correlation lengths are investigated and the resulting implications for the European power system are discussed. In addition, we compare a 30-node model of Europe with historical and climate change-affected data, where investments in generation, transmission and storage facilities are optimised. Differences in capacity factors among European countries are more strongly emphasized at the end of the century compared to historic data. This results in a significantly increased photovoltaic share in the cost-optimal power system. In addition, annual hydro inflow patterns of major hydro producers change considerably. System costs increase by 5% until the end of the century and the impact of climate change on these costs is of similar magnitude as differences between the ensemble members. The results show that including climate affected-weather data in power system simulations of the future has an observeable effect.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of climate change on a cost-optimal highly renewable European electricity network

et al. 2018

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“…It is also highly relevant because of the impacts of climate variability on society. For example, the design and management of energy infrastructure is directly affected by climate variability (e.g., Bloomfield et al, 2016;Conway et al, 2017;Wohland et al, 2018) and climate change (Schlott et al, 2018;Wohland et al, 2017). Incorporating climate variability into transmission system design (e.g., Kempton et al, 2010) and wind park siting (e.g., Grams et al, 2017) facilitates integration of wind energy.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inconsistent Wind Speed Trends in Current Twentieth Century Reanalyses

et al. 2019

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Reanalysis data underpin much research in atmospheric and related sciences. While most reanalysis only cover the last couple of decades, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (20CR) and European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts (ERA20C and CERA20C) also developed reanalyses for the entire twentieth century that theoretically allow investigation of multidecadal variability. However, the approaches adopted to handle the massively evolving number of observations can cause spurious signals. Here we focus on wind speeds, as its assimilation is a key difference among these two products. We show that ERA20C and CERA20C feature significant trends in the North Atlantic and North Pacific wind speeds of up to 3 m/s per century. We show that there is a good relation between the trends in the reanalysis and assimilated wind speeds. In contrast, 20CR and the European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts free model run ERA20CM do not show positive trends in the same regions. As a consequence, conclusions drawn from any single twentieth century reanalysis should be treated cautiously in particular in sectors with a strong wind dependency (e.g., wind energy).

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“…As the lifetime of energy systems infrastructure (e.g., transmission lines and generation plants) is typically many decades, it is therefore important to accurately estimate how wind power resources may change over this period. In recent years, several authors have explored wind speed and wind power projections for Europe on the basis of GCM 1 3 simulations (e.g., Tobin et al 2015Tobin et al , 2016Reyers et al 2016;Carvalho et al 2017;Wohland et al 2017;Karnauskas et al 2018). Reyers et al (2016) analyzed future projections from the latest Climate Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) ensemble and found an increase in wind energy potentials for winter over central and Northern Europe, though large differences between the model projections were noted.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The contribution of North Atlantic atmospheric circulation shifts to future wind speed projections for wind power over Europe

2019

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Wind power accounts for a large portion of the European energy mix (17% of total power capacity). European power systems therefore have a significant-and growing-exposure to near-surface wind speed changes. Despite this, future changes in European wind climate remain relatively poorly studied (compared to, e.g., temperature or precipitation), and there is limited understanding of the differences shown by different general and regional circulation models (GCMs and RCMs). This study provides a step towards a process-based understanding of European wind speed changes by isolating the component associated with 'large-scale' atmospheric circulation changes in the CMIP5 simulations. The component associated with the large-scale atmospheric circulation is found to explain cold season windiness projections in the free troposphere over Western Europe, with the changes reflecting the poleward shift of the North Atlantic jet. However, in most GCMs the projected wind speed changes near the surface are more negative than would be expected from the large-scale circulation alone. Thus, while the spread in CMIP5 21st century near surface wind speed projections is associated with divergent projections for the large-scale atmospheric circulation, there is a remarkably good agreement concerning a relative reduction in near-surface wind speeds. This analysis suggests that projected 21st century wind speed changes over Western Europe are the result of two distinct processes. The first is associated with changes in the large-scale atmospheric circulation, while the second is likely to be more local in its connection to the near-surface boundary layer. An improved process-based understanding of both is needed for enhancing confidence in wind-power projections on multi-decadal timescales.

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More homogeneous wind conditions under strong climate change decrease the potential for inter-state balancing of electricity in Europe

Cited by 42 publications

References 56 publications

The impact of climate change on a cost-optimal highly renewable European electricity network

The impact of climate change on a cost-optimal highly renewable European electricity network

Inconsistent Wind Speed Trends in Current Twentieth Century Reanalyses

The contribution of North Atlantic atmospheric circulation shifts to future wind speed projections for wind power over Europe

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