Skill and Reliability of Seasonal Forecasts for the Chinese Energy Sector

Abstract

We assess the skill and reliability of forecasts of winter and summer temperature, wind speed and irradiance over China, using the GloSea5 seasonal forecast system. Skill in such forecasts is important for the future development of seasonal climate services for the energy sector, allowing better estimates of forthcoming demand and renewable electricity supply. We find that although overall the skill from the direct model output is patchy, some high-skill regions of interest to the energy sector can be identified. In particular, winter mean wind speed is skilfully forecast around the coast of the South China Sea, related to skilful forecasts of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. Such information could improve seasonal estimates of offshore wind power generation. Similarly, forecasts of winter irradiance have good skill in eastern central China, with possible use for solar power estimation. Much of China shows skill in summer temperatures, which derives from an upward trend. However, the region around Beijing retains this skill even when detrended. This temperature skill could be helpful in managing summer energy demand. While both the strengths and limitations of our results will need to be considered when developing seasonal climate services in the future, the outlook for such service development in China is promising. This document is c Crown

The western Pacific subtropical high and tropical cyclone landfall: Seasonal forecasts using the Met Office GloSea5 system

“…The Met Office Global Seasonal forecast system version 5, GloSea5 (MacLachlan et al ), shows significant skill for seasonal predictions of TCs over the WNP (Camp et al ) and the JJA WPSH index over the period 1996–2009 (linear correlation of 0.80; MacLachlan et al ). Significant skill has also been shown for other variables in China, such as wind, temperature and precipitation (Lu et al ; Bett et al ), including summer rainfall in the Yangtze river basin region (Li et al ; Golding et al ; Bett et al ) and its asymmetric response to El Niño and La Niña events (Hardiman et al ). However, the relationship between the WPSH and TC landfall in East Asia has not yet been explored.…”

Skilful seasonal prediction of winter gas demand

“…Skill in predicting gas demand is established by assessing the relationship strength between the forecast climate index and the observed gas demand variable, following the approach of Bett et al [16]. The ability of the climate index to predict above median, above upper tercile or the correct tercile of winter demand is assessed using the Heidke skill score (HSS).…”

“…The use of seasonal forecast information by the energy industry is in its infancy with only a few studies demonstrating their potential benefits [13][14][15][16][17], and to date none have addressed gas demand forecasting.…”

Impact of Cold Waves and Heat Waves on the Energy Production Sector

“…The French company EDF is reported to have been using a combination of probabilistic and deterministic numerical weather prediction for monthly forecast of temperatures affecting their operations with an acceptable skill [70]. Recent work for China shows some promising results using the HadGEM-GloSea5 model, mostly for wind in winter and summer temperatures [71].…”