A review of the potential impacts of climate change on bulk power system planning and operations in the United States
Abstract
In this paper, climate change might impact various components of the bulk electric power system, including electricity demand; transmission; and thermal, hydropower, wind, and solar generators. Most research in this area quantifies impacts on one or a few components and does not link these impacts to effects on power system planning and operations. Here, we advance the understanding of how climate change might impact the bulk U.S. power system in three ways. First, we synthesize recent research to capture likely component-level impacts of climate change in the United States. Second, given the interconnected nature of the electric power system, we assess how aggregated component-level impacts might affect power system planning and operations. Third, we outline an agenda for future research on climate change impacts on power system planning and operations. Although component-level impacts vary in their magnitude, collectively they might significantly affect planning and operations. Most notably, increased demand plus reduced firm capacity across generation types might require systems to procure significant additional capacity to maintain planning reserve margins, and regional declines in renewable resources might need to be offset by increasing zero-carbon investment to meet decarbonization targets. Aggregated impacts might also affect operations, e.g., through shifts in dispatching andmore »
- Authors:
-
[1];
[1];
[1];
[1]
- National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
- National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1476442
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1637051
- Report Number(s):
- NREL/JA-5D00-71406
Journal ID: ISSN 1364-0321
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC36-08GO28308
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 98; Journal Issue: C; Journal ID: ISSN 1364-0321
- Publisher:
- Elsevier
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY; climate change; power system; climate change impacts; power system planning; power system operations
Citation Formats
Craig, Michael T., Cohen, Stuart M., Macknick, Jordan E., Draxl, Caroline, Guerra, Omar J., Sengupta, Manajit, Haupt, Sue Ellen, Hodge, Brian -Mathias, and Brancucci, Carlo. A review of the potential impacts of climate change on bulk power system planning and operations in the United States. United States: N. p., 2018.
Web. doi:10.1016/j.rser.2018.09.022.
Craig, Michael T., Cohen, Stuart M., Macknick, Jordan E., Draxl, Caroline, Guerra, Omar J., Sengupta, Manajit, Haupt, Sue Ellen, Hodge, Brian -Mathias, & Brancucci, Carlo. A review of the potential impacts of climate change on bulk power system planning and operations in the United States. United States. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2018.09.022
Craig, Michael T., Cohen, Stuart M., Macknick, Jordan E., Draxl, Caroline, Guerra, Omar J., Sengupta, Manajit, Haupt, Sue Ellen, Hodge, Brian -Mathias, and Brancucci, Carlo. Tue .
"A review of the potential impacts of climate change on bulk power system planning and operations in the United States". United States. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2018.09.022. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1476442.
@article{osti_1476442,
title = {A review of the potential impacts of climate change on bulk power system planning and operations in the United States},
author = {Craig, Michael T. and Cohen, Stuart M. and Macknick, Jordan E. and Draxl, Caroline and Guerra, Omar J. and Sengupta, Manajit and Haupt, Sue Ellen and Hodge, Brian -Mathias and Brancucci, Carlo},
abstractNote = {In this paper, climate change might impact various components of the bulk electric power system, including electricity demand; transmission; and thermal, hydropower, wind, and solar generators. Most research in this area quantifies impacts on one or a few components and does not link these impacts to effects on power system planning and operations. Here, we advance the understanding of how climate change might impact the bulk U.S. power system in three ways. First, we synthesize recent research to capture likely component-level impacts of climate change in the United States. Second, given the interconnected nature of the electric power system, we assess how aggregated component-level impacts might affect power system planning and operations. Third, we outline an agenda for future research on climate change impacts on power system planning and operations. Although component-level impacts vary in their magnitude, collectively they might significantly affect planning and operations. Most notably, increased demand plus reduced firm capacity across generation types might require systems to procure significant additional capacity to maintain planning reserve margins, and regional declines in renewable resources might need to be offset by increasing zero-carbon investment to meet decarbonization targets. Aggregated impacts might also affect operations, e.g., through shifts in dispatching and increased operational reserve requirements. Future research should aggregate component-level impacts at operational timescales, quantify impacts on wind and solar variability, and contextualize climate change impacts within ongoing shifts in the electric power system.},
doi = {10.1016/j.rser.2018.09.022},
journal = {Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews},
number = C,
volume = 98,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Sep 25 00:00:00 EDT 2018},
month = {Tue Sep 25 00:00:00 EDT 2018}
}
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
Other availability
Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journal
Cited by: 44 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science
Web of Science
Figures / Tables:
Table 1: For each component-level impact, our Scopus search terms, the number of publications returned by each search, and the number of publications returned by each search filtered for relevance.
All figures and tables
(11 total)
Save to My Library
You must Sign In or Create an Account in order to save documents to your library.
Works referenced in this record:
Climate change is projected to have severe impacts on the frequency and intensity of peak electricity demand across the United States
journal, February 2017
- Auffhammer, Maximilian; Baylis, Patrick; Hausman, Catherine H.
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 114, Issue 8
Estimating impacts of warming temperatures on California's electricity system
journal, April 2013
- Sathaye, Jayant A.; Dale, Larry L.; Larsen, Peter H.
- Global Environmental Change, Vol. 23, Issue 2
Vulnerability of US and European electricity supply to climate change
journal, June 2012
- van Vliet, Michelle T. H.; Yearsley, John R.; Ludwig, Fulco
- Nature Climate Change, Vol. 2, Issue 9
Climate and water resource change impacts and adaptation potential for US power supply
journal, October 2017
- Miara, Ariel; Macknick, Jordan E.; Vörösmarty, Charles J.
- Nature Climate Change, Vol. 7, Issue 11
Southward shift of the global wind energy resource under high carbon dioxide emissions
journal, December 2017
- Karnauskas, Kristopher B.; Lundquist, Julie K.; Zhang, Lei
- Nature Geoscience, Vol. 11, Issue 1
Projections of long-term changes in solar radiation based on CMIP5 climate models and their influence on energy yields of photovoltaic systems
journal, June 2015
- Wild, Martin; Folini, Doris; Henschel, Florian
- Solar Energy, Vol. 116
Energy sector vulnerability to climate change: A review
journal, February 2012
- Schaeffer, Roberto; Szklo, Alexandre Salem; Pereira de Lucena, André Frossard
- Energy, Vol. 38, Issue 1
The impact of climate change on the electricity market: A review
journal, July 2010
- Mideksa, Torben K.; Kallbekken, Steffen
- Energy Policy, Vol. 38, Issue 7
Impacts of rising air temperatures and emissions mitigation on electricity demand and supply in the United States: a multi-model comparison
journal, June 2015
- McFarland, James; Zhou, Yuyu; Clarke, Leon
- Climatic Change, Vol. 131, Issue 1
The retirement cliff: Power plant lives and their policy implications
journal, July 2017
- Rode, David C.; Fischbeck, Paul S.; Páez, Antonio R.
- Energy Policy, Vol. 106
An Overview of CMIP5 and the Experiment Design
journal, April 2012
- Taylor, Karl E.; Stouffer, Ronald J.; Meehl, Gerald A.
- Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Vol. 93, Issue 4
Impact of climate change on energy use in the built environment in different climate zones – A review
journal, June 2012
- Li, Danny H. W.; Yang, Liu; Lam, Joseph C.
- Energy, Vol. 42, Issue 1
Predicting the Response of Electricity Load to Climate Change
report, July 2015
- Sullivan, Patrick; Colman, Jesse; Kalendra, Eric
Transforming existing weather data for worldwide locations to enable energy and building performance simulation under future climates
journal, July 2013
- Jentsch, Mark F.; James, Patrick A. B.; Bourikas, Leonidas
- Renewable Energy, Vol. 55
Impact of climate change on building energy use in different climate zones and mitigation and adaptation implications
journal, September 2012
- Wan, Kevin K. W.; Li, Danny H. W.; Pan, Wenyan
- Applied Energy, Vol. 97
Impacts of climate change on energy consumption and peak demand in buildings: A detailed regional approach
journal, January 2015
- Dirks, James A.; Gorrissen, Willy J.; Hathaway, John H.
- Energy, Vol. 79
Impact of climate change on U.S. building energy demand: sensitivity to spatiotemporal scales, balance point temperature, and population distribution
journal, April 2016
- Huang, Jianhua; Gurney, Kevin Robert
- Climatic Change, Vol. 137, Issue 1-2
Investigating the nexus of climate, energy, water, and land at decision-relevant scales: the Platform for Regional Integrated Modeling and Analysis (PRIMA)
journal, February 2014
- Kraucunas, Ian; Clarke, Leon; Dirks, James
- Climatic Change, Vol. 129, Issue 3-4
The effect of global climate change, population distribution, and climate mitigation on building energy use in the U.S. and China
journal, May 2013
- Zhou, Yuyu; Eom, Jiyong; Clarke, Leon
- Climatic Change, Vol. 119, Issue 3-4
Electricity demand planning forecasts should consider climate non-stationarity to maintain reserve margins during heat waves
journal, November 2017
- Burillo, Daniel; Chester, Mikhail V.; Ruddell, Benjamin
- Applied Energy, Vol. 206
Assessment of projected temperature impacts from climate change on the U.S. electric power sector using the Integrated Planning Model®
journal, October 2014
- Jaglom, Wendy S.; McFarland, James R.; Colley, Michelle F.
- Energy Policy, Vol. 73
A System-Level Generic Model of Water Use at Power Plants and its Application to Regional Water Use Estimation
conference, August 2012
- Rutberg, Michael J.; Delgado, Anna; Herzog, Howard J.
- ASME 2011 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, Volume 1: Advances in Aerospace Technology; Energy Water Nexus; Globalization of Engineering; Posters
Dynamic modelling of water demand, water availability and adaptation strategies for power plants to global change
journal, May 2009
- Koch, Hagen; Vögele, Stefan
- Ecological Economics, Vol. 68, Issue 7
Power-generation system vulnerability and adaptation to changes in climate and water resources
journal, January 2016
- van Vliet, Michelle T. H.; Wiberg, David; Leduc, Sylvain
- Nature Climate Change, Vol. 6, Issue 4
Impacts of climate change on electric power supply in the Western United States
journal, May 2015
- Bartos, Matthew D.; Chester, Mikhail V.
- Nature Climate Change, Vol. 5, Issue 8
Effects of Environmental Temperature Change on the Efficiency of Coal- and Natural Gas-Fired Power Plants
journal, August 2016
- Henry, Candise L.; Pratson, Lincoln F.
- Environmental Science & Technology, Vol. 50, Issue 17
Vulnerability of US thermoelectric power generation to climate change when incorporating state-level environmental regulations
journal, July 2017
- Liu, Lu; Hejazi, Mohamad; Li, Hongyi
- Nature Energy, Vol. 2, Issue 8
US Power Production at Risk from Water Stress in a Changing Climate
journal, September 2017
- Ganguli, Poulomi; Kumar, Devashish; Ganguly, Auroop R.
- Scientific Reports, Vol. 7, Issue 1
Advances and challenges in water management within energy systems
journal, February 2018
- Guerra, Omar J.; Reklaitis, Gintaras V.
- Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Vol. 82
Water Impacts of CO 2 Emission Performance Standards for Fossil Fuel-fired Power Plants
journal, September 2014
- Talati, Shuchi; Zhai, Haibo; Morgan, M. Granger
- Environmental Science & Technology, Vol. 48, Issue 20
Projecting hydropower production under future climates: a guide for decision-makers and modelers to interpret and design climate change impact assessments: Projecting hydropower production under future climates
journal, March 2015
- Schaefli, Bettina
- Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water, Vol. 2, Issue 4
Quantifying climate change impacts on hydropower generation and implications on electric grid greenhouse gas emissions and operation
journal, September 2016
- Tarroja, Brian; AghaKouchak, Amir; Samuelsen, Scott
- Energy, Vol. 111
Multimodel assessment of water scarcity under climate change
journal, December 2013
- Schewe, Jacob; Heinke, Jens; Gerten, Dieter
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 111, Issue 9
Estimated impacts of climate warming on California’s high-elevation hydropower
journal, November 2009
- Madani, Kaveh; Lund, Jay R.
- Climatic Change, Vol. 102, Issue 3-4
Examining global electricity supply vulnerability to climate change using a high-fidelity hydropower dam model
journal, July 2017
- Turner, Sean W. D.; Ng, Jia Yi; Galelli, Stefano
- Science of The Total Environment, Vol. 590-591
Climate change impact on available water resources obtained using multiple global climate and hydrology models
journal, January 2013
- Hagemann, S.; Chen, C.; Clark, D. B.
- Earth System Dynamics, Vol. 4, Issue 1
Multi-model assessment of global hydropower and cooling water discharge potential under climate change
journal, September 2016
- van Vliet, M. T. H.; van Beek, L. P. H.; Eisner, S.
- Global Environmental Change, Vol. 40
Climate change impacts and greenhouse gas mitigation effects on U.S. hydropower generation
journal, December 2016
- Boehlert, Brent; Strzepek, Kenneth M.; Gebretsadik, Yohannes
- Applied Energy, Vol. 183
Effects of climate change on streamflow extremes and implications for reservoir inflow in the United States
journal, January 2018
- Naz, Bibi S.; Kao, Shih-Chieh; Ashfaq, Moetasim
- Journal of Hydrology, Vol. 556
Effects of projected climate change on energy supply and demand in the Pacific Northwest and Washington State
journal, May 2010
- Hamlet, Alan F.; Lee, Se-Yeun; Mickelson, Kristian E. B.
- Climatic Change, Vol. 102, Issue 1-2
Projecting changes in annual hydropower generation using regional runoff data: An assessment of the United States federal hydropower plants
journal, February 2015
- Kao, Shih-Chieh; Sale, Michael J.; Ashfaq, Moetasim
- Energy, Vol. 80
Robust response to hydro-climatic change in electricity generation planning
journal, March 2015
- Parkinson, Simon C.; Djilali, Ned
- Climatic Change, Vol. 130, Issue 4, p. 475-489
Northern Hemisphere atmospheric stilling partly attributed to an increase in surface roughness
journal, October 2010
- Vautard, Robert; Cattiaux, Julien; Yiou, Pascal
- Nature Geoscience, Vol. 3, Issue 11
Assessing climate change impacts on the near-term stability of the wind energy resource over the United States
journal, May 2011
- Pryor, S. C.; Barthelmie, R. J.
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 108, Issue 20
Projected impacts of climate change on wind energy density in the United States
journal, January 2016
- Johnson, Dana L.; Erhardt, Robert J.
- Renewable Energy, Vol. 85
A Method to Assess the Wind and Solar Resource and to Quantify Interannual Variability over the United States under Current and Projected Future Climate
journal, February 2016
- Haupt, Sue Ellen; Copeland, Jeffrey; Cheng, William Y. Y.
- Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, Vol. 55, Issue 2
Changes in Surface Wind Speed over North America from CMIP5 Model Projections and Implications for Wind Energy
journal, January 2014
- Kulkarni, Sujay; Huang, Huei-Ping
- Advances in Meteorology, Vol. 2014
Evaluating the impacts of climate change on diurnal wind power cycles using multiple regional climate models: CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACT ON DIURNAL WIND POWER
journal, January 2015
- Goddard, Scott D.; Genton, Marc G.; Hering, Amanda S.
- Environmetrics, Vol. 26, Issue 3
Simulating Clouds with Global Climate Models: A Comparison of CMIP5 Results with CMIP3 and Satellite Data
journal, June 2013
- Lauer, Axel; Hamilton, Kevin
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 26, Issue 11
Impact of climate change on future concentrated solar power (CSP) production
conference, January 2017
- Wild, Martin; Folini, Doris; Henschel, Florian
- RADIATION PROCESSES IN THE ATMOSPHERE AND OCEAN (IRS2016): Proceedings of the International Radiation Symposium (IRC/IAMAS), AIP Conference Proceedings
Trends of surface solar radiation in unforced CMIP5 simulations: SSR TRENDS IN UNFORCED CMIP5 SIMULATIONS
journal, January 2017
- Folini, D.; Dallafior, T. N.; Hakuba, M. Z.
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, Vol. 122, Issue 1
Do climate models project changes in solar resources?
journal, May 2016
- Huber, Isabelle; Bugliaro, Luca; Ponater, Michael
- Solar Energy, Vol. 129
Climate change impacts on future photovoltaic and concentrated solar power energy output
journal, January 2011
- Crook, Julia A.; Jones, Laura A.; Forster, Piers M.
- Energy & Environmental Science, Vol. 4, Issue 9
Decadal changes in radiative fluxes at land and ocean surfaces and their relevance for global warming
journal, November 2015
- Wild, Martin
- Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, Vol. 7, Issue 1
Consequences of neglecting the interannual variability of the solar resource: A case study of photovoltaic power among the Hawaiian Islands
journal, June 2018
- Bryce, Richard; Losada Carreño, Ignacio; Kumler, Andrew
- Solar Energy, Vol. 167
The effect of weather on grid systems and the reliability of electricity supply
journal, September 2013
- Ward, David M.
- Climatic Change, Vol. 121, Issue 1
Impacts of rising air temperatures on electric transmission ampacity and peak electricity load in the United States
journal, November 2016
- Bartos, Matthew; Chester, Mikhail; Johnson, Nathan
- Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 11, Issue 11
Electric Grid Vulnerabilities to Rising Air Temperatures in Arizona
journal, January 2016
- Burillo, Daniel; Chester, Mikhail; Ruddell, Benjamin
- Procedia Engineering, Vol. 145
Transforming the Electric Infrastructure
journal, December 2004
- Gellings, Clark W.; Yeager, Kurt E.
- Physics Today, Vol. 57, Issue 12
Evaluating penalized logistic regression models to predict Heat-Related Electric grid stress days
journal, November 2017
- Bramer, L. M.; Rounds, J.; Burleyson, C. D.
- Applied Energy, Vol. 205
Climate change challenges for central banks and financial regulators
journal, May 2018
- Campiglio, Emanuele; Dafermos, Yannis; Monnin, Pierre
- Nature Climate Change, Vol. 8, Issue 6
Water constraints on European power supply under climate change: impacts on electricity prices
journal, July 2013
- van Vliet, Michelle T. H.; Vögele, Stefan; Rübbelke, Dirk
- Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 8, Issue 3
Climate change impacts on wind energy potential in the European domain with a focus on the Black Sea
journal, January 2018
- Davy, Richard; Gnatiuk, Natalia; Pettersson, Lasse
- Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Vol. 81
The impact of climate change on photovoltaic power generation in Europe
journal, December 2015
- Jerez, Sonia; Tobin, Isabelle; Vautard, Robert
- Nature Communications, Vol. 6, Issue 1
Projected impacts of climate change on hydropower potential in China
journal, January 2016
- Liu, Xingcai; Tang, Qiuhong; Voisin, Nathalie
- Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, Vol. 20, Issue 8
The impact of climate change on wind and solar resources in southern Africa
journal, January 2016
- Fant, Charles; Adam Schlosser, C.; Strzepek, Kenneth
- Applied Energy, Vol. 161
Works referencing / citing this record:
Water–Energy–Food Nexus Simulation: An Optimization Approach for Resource Security
journal, March 2019
- Wicaksono, Albert; Jeong, Gimoon; Kang, Doosun
- Water, Vol. 11, Issue 4
Compounding climate change impacts during high stress periods for a high wind and solar power system in Texas
journal, January 2020
- Craig, Michael T.; Jaramillo, Paulina; Hodge, Bri-Mathias
- Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 15, Issue 2
Effects on power system operations of potential changes in wind and solar generation potential under climate change
journal, March 2019
- Craig, Michael T.; Losada Carreño, Ignacio; Rossol, Michael
- Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 14, Issue 3
Figures/Tables have been extracted from DOE-funded journal article accepted manuscripts.