The critical role of humidity in modeling summer electricity demand across the United States

Maia-Silva, Débora; Kumar, Rohini; Nateghi, Roshanak

doi:10.1038/s41467-020-15393-8

Cited by 57 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…This combined impact of temperature and humidity is better indicative of the physiological experience of heat, and the higher the humidity, the higher the perceived temperature, the higher the potential health risks, the poorer the thermal comfort, and hence, the higher the building energy use to keep the indoor conditions at favorable levels. Despite recent sporadic studies that demonstrated that humid heat is increasingly a global trend [11] and highlighted urban moisture as a prevalent issue and an aggravator of heat island impact [12][13][14][15] with important implications on health and energy use [16], the scholarly discourse on urban microclimate under current and future climatic trends is still heavily dominated by air temperatures alone. In this respect, our presuppositions with regards to the thermal comfort in different land-use areas need also to be revisited, especially in tropical and subtropical cities (compared to mid-latitude cities), because (1) high air temperatures and UHI in tropical and subtropical cities is an almost year-round critical phenomenon, (2) humidity levels are rather high due to frequent and intense precipitation, and (3) ventilation is low due to overall lower wind speed values, further exacerbating the adverse impact of humidity on perceived temperatures.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Outdoor Thermal Comfort and Building Energy Use Potential in Different Land-Use Areas in Tropical Cities: Case of Kuala Lumpur

et al. 2020

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High air temperature and high humidity, combined with low wind speeds, are common trends in the tropical urban climates, which collectively govern heat-induced health risks and outdoor thermal comfort under the given hygrothermal conditions. The impact of different urban land-uses on air temperatures is well-documented by many studies focusing on the urban heat island phenomenon; however, an integrated study of air temperature and humidity, i.e., the human-perceived temperatures, in different land-use areas is essential to understand the impact of hot and humid tropical urban climates on the thermal comfort of urban dwellers for an appraisal of potential health risks and the associated building energy use potential. In this study, we show through near-surface monitoring how these factors vary in distinct land-use areas of Kuala Lumpur city, characterized by different morphological features (high-rise vs. low-rise; compact vs. open), level of anthropogenic heating and evapotranspiration (built-up vs. green areas), and building materials (concrete buildings vs. traditional Malay homes in timber) based on the calculated heat index (HI), apparent temperature (TApp) and equivalent temperature (TE) values in wet and dry seasons. The results show that the felt-like temperatures are almost always higher than the air temperatures in all land-use areas, and this difference is highest in daytime temperatures in green areas during the dry season, by up to about 8 °C (HI)/5 °C (TApp). The TE values are also up to 9% higher in these areas than in built-up areas. We conclude that tackling urban heat island without compromising thermal comfort levels, hence encouraging energy use reduction in buildings to cope with outdoor conditions requires a careful management of humidity levels, as well as a careful selection of building morphology and materials.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Outdoor Thermal Comfort and Building Energy Use Potential in Different Land-Use Areas in Tropical Cities: Case of Kuala Lumpur

et al. 2020

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“…These three utilities combine to provide electricity to over 95% of Californians 30 . We consider the daily variation of both dry-bulb (T) and wet-bulb (W) temperatures in our analysis, following previous studies showing the importance of T and humidity (embedded in W), affecting electricity consumption patterns across US 3 . Both climatic variables are aggregated to an equivalent geographic scale of the electricity data using population as a spatial weighting factor ("Methods").…”

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confidence: 99%

Asymmetrical response of California electricity demand to summer-time temperature variation

Kumar

Rachunok

Maia-Silva

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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Current projections of the climate-sensitive portion of residential electricity demand are based on estimating the temperature response of the mean of the demand distribution. In this work, we show that there is significant asymmetry in the summertime temperature response of electricity demand in the state of California, with high-intensity demand demonstrating a greater sensitivity to temperature increases. The greater climate sensitivity of high-intensity demand is found not only in the observed data, but also in the projections in the near future (2021-2040) and far future periods (2081-2099), and across all (three) utility service regions in California. We illustrate that disregarding the asymmetrical climate sensitivity of demand can lead to underestimating high-intensity demand in a given period by 37-43%. Moreover, the discrepancy in the projected increase in the climate-sensitive portion of demand based on the 50th versus 90th quantile estimates could range from 18 to 40% over the next 20 years. Electricity demand is influenced by many factors, including socio-demographic characteristics 4 , technology 5 , markets 6 , and climate 7-9. Here, we focus on understanding the climate sensitivity of residential electricity demand, which is a critical factor in ensuring the resilient operation of the grid under climate change 1-3. Recent work has isolated the effect of climate variability and change on both peak load (i.e., the highest load in a given time period) and total electricity consumption, indicating climate change will lead to greater electricity use, particularly in the residential sector 2,10-16. This has significant implications as unanticipated increases in cooling demand in the residential sector during heat waves (i.e., periods with sustained positive temperature anomalies) can lead to unexpected supply shortages 17 , distorted electricity market prices 18,19 , as well as increased morbidity and mortality 20 , particularly in vulnerable populations and disadvantaged communities 21. To minimize the economic and social costs of interrupted electricity service, researchers forecast the climatesensitive portion of residential electricity demand during extreme temperatures by harnessing methodologies from various fields, including econometrics 4,22,23 , engineering 23,24 , statistics and machine learning 13,15. However, the existing body of literature has primarily focused on modeling the temperature response of the central tendency (i.e., mean/median) of the demand distribution, as opposed to considering its entire distribution 2,25-27. We hypothesize that projections solely based on the mean/median values of the load distribution underestimate the climate sensitivity of high-intensity demand. Our central hypothesis is that while projections of the climate-demand nexus based on the mean/median values of demand distributions help to characterize the general trends in electricity use over time, they are likely inadequate in characterizing the climate sensitivity of the upper extremes of demand which are...

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“…The air temperature is considered one of the most important climate factors, as the daily activities of people are influenced by even a minor change in air temperature 13 . According to Maia-Silva et al 14 , relative humidity (RH; calculated from the surface air and dew point temperatures) rise is one of the main climate challenges, as the increase in surface air temperature is correlated with a decrease in relative humidity. This coupling effect can be disastrous, especially during heat wave events.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent atmospheric changes and future projections along the Saudi Arabian Red Sea Coast

Bawadekji

Tonbol

Ghazouani

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

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Recent and future climate diagrams (surface air temperature, surface relative humidity, surface wind, and mean sea level pressure) for the Saudi Arabian Red Sea Coast are analysed based on hourly observations (2016–2020) and hourly ERA5 data (1979–2020) with daily GFDL mini-ensemble means (2006–2100). Moreover, GFDL mini-ensemble means are calculated based on the results of three GFDL simulations (GFDL-CM3, GFDL-ESM2M, and GFDL-ESM2G). Observation data are employed to describe the short-term current weather variability. However, ERA5 data are considered to study the long-term current weather variability after bias removal via a comparison to observations. Finally, a bias correction statistical model was developed by matching the cumulative distribution functions (CDFs) of corrected ERA5 and mini-ensemble mean data over 15 years (2006–2020). The obtained local statistic were used to statically downscale GFDL mini-ensemble means to study the future uncertainty in the atmospheric parameters studied. There occurred significant spatial variability across the study area, especially regarding the surface air temperature and relative humidity, based on monthly analysis of both observation and ERA5 data. Moreover, the results indicated that the ERA5 data suitably describe Tabuk, Jeddah and Jizan weather conditions with a marked spatial variability. The best performance of ERA5 surface air temperature and relative humidity (surface wind speed and sea level pressure) data was detected in Tabuk (Jeddah). These data for the Saudi Arabian Red Sea coast, 1979–2020, exhibit significant positive trends of the surface air temperature and surface wind speed and significant negative trends of the relative humidity and sea level pressure. The GFDL mini-ensemble mean projection result, up to 2100, contains a significant bias in the studied weather parameters. This is partly attributed to the coarse GFDL resolution (2° × 2°). After bias removal, the statistically downscaled simulations based on the GFDL mini-ensemble mean indicate that the climate in the study area will experience significant changes with a large range of uncertainty according to the considered scenario and regional variations.

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The critical role of humidity in modeling summer electricity demand across the United States

Cited by 57 publications

References 47 publications

Outdoor Thermal Comfort and Building Energy Use Potential in Different Land-Use Areas in Tropical Cities: Case of Kuala Lumpur

Outdoor Thermal Comfort and Building Energy Use Potential in Different Land-Use Areas in Tropical Cities: Case of Kuala Lumpur

Asymmetrical response of California electricity demand to summer-time temperature variation

Recent atmospheric changes and future projections along the Saudi Arabian Red Sea Coast

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