Compound climate events transform electrical power shortfall risk in the Pacific Northwest

S. W. D. Turner, N. Voisin (), J. Fazio, D. Hua and M. Jourabchi
Additional contact information
S. W. D. Turner: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Seattle Research Center
N. Voisin: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Seattle Research Center
J. Fazio: Northwest Power and Conservation Council
D. Hua: Northwest Power and Conservation Council
M. Jourabchi: Northwest Power and Conservation Council

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Power system reliability is sensitive to climate-driven variations in both energy demand and water availability, yet the combined effect of these impacts is rarely evaluated. Here we show that combined climate change impacts on loads and hydropower generation may have a transformative effect on the nature and seasonality of power shortfall risk in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. Under climate change, potential shortfall events occur more readily, but are significantly less severe in nature. A seasonal reversal in shortfall risk occurs: winter shortfalls are eradicated due to reduced building heating demands, while summer shortfalls multiply as increased peak loads for day-time cooling coincide with impaired hydropower generation. Many of these summer shortfalls go unregistered when climate change impacts on loads and hydropower dispatch are analyzed in isolation—highlighting an important role of compound events.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-07894-4 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-018-07894-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-07894-4

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().