Potential impacts of climate change on wind and solar electricity generation in Texas

Losada Carreño, Ignacio; Craig, Michael T.; Rossol, Michael; Ashfaq, Moetasim; Batibeniz, Fulden; Haupt, Sue Ellen; Draxl, Caroline; Hodge, Bri-Mathias; Brancucci, Carlo

doi:10.1007/s10584-020-02891-3

Potential impacts of climate change on wind and solar electricity generation in Texas

Journal Article · Sat Nov 14 00:00:00 EST 2020 · Climatic Change

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-020-02891-3· OSTI ID:1720252

Losada Carreño, Ignacio ^[1]; Craig, Michael T. ^[2]; Rossol, Michael ^[2]; ^[3]; Batibeniz, Fulden ^[3]; Haupt, Sue Ellen ^[4]; Draxl, Caroline ^[2]; Hodge, Bri-Mathias ^[5]; Brancucci, Carlo ^[2]

National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Arizona State Univ., Tempe, AZ (United States)
National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, CO (United States)
National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)

Wind and solar energy sources are climate and weather dependent, therefore susceptible to a changing climate. in this paper, we quantify the impacts of climate change on wind and solar electricity generation under high concentrations of greenhouse gases in Texas. We employ mid-twenty-first century climate projections and a high-resolution numerical weather prediction model to generate weather variables in the future and produce wind and solar generation time series. We find that mid-twenty-first century projections based on five global climate models agree on the multiyear average increases across Texas in direct normal irradiance, global horizontal irradiance, surface air temperature, and 100-m wind speed of up to 5%, 4%, 10%, and 1%, respectively. These changes lead to multiyear average relative changes across Texas of -0.6 to + 2.5% and of + 1.3 to + 3.5% in solar and wind capacity factors, respectively, with significant regional, seasonal, and diurnal differences. Areas with low solar resource show an increase in solar capacity factors but reductions in wind capacity factors. Areas with high solar resource show reductions in solar capacity factors. The spatial and temporal differences in our results highlight the importance of using high-resolution data sets to study the potential impacts of climate change on wind and solar power.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program

Grant/Contract Number:: AC05-00OR22725; AC36-08GO28308

OSTI ID:: 1720252

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1755683

Report Number(s):: NREL/JA--5D00-72412

Journal Information:: Climatic Change, Journal Name: Climatic Change Journal Issue: TBD Vol. TBD; ISSN 0165-0009

Publisher:: SpringerCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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