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LONDON, England, September 20, 2006 (Refocus
Weekly)
The British energy industry will be affected by
climate change, according to the national meteorology agency.
“The general consensus is that the world is warming due to the
global effects of greenhouse gas emissions from human activity,”
concludes the UK Met Office which worked with E.ON UK, EDF Energy
and the National Grid to use climate predictions to understand how
climate change will affect future energy use and demand. “Regional
studies are suggesting local changes in temperature and
precipitation patterns, wind and wave activity, and floods and
storms that could profoundly affect society.”
All activities of the energy industry are affected by the weather
and are “potentially vulnerable to climate change,” it notes.
Industry plans for generation are affected by government targets,
and the target for reductions in GHG emissions states that
“emissions reductions will come from continued movement towards gas
fired power stations; a target of 10% of the UK's electricity to be
supplied from renewable energy by 2010 subject to the cost to
consumers being acceptable; and a target to at least double the
capacity of combined heat and power by 2010.”
The study is designed to help energy companies plan for the future
and shape all aspects of future energy provision and supply.
Participants ranked the impacts from climate change and how they
could affect the industry, and devised a priority list of areas
requiring further detailed assessment.
The scoping study used climate predictions created by the Met
Office's Hadley Centre, and the venture is the first nation-wide
attempt to identify how climate change will affect energy
generation, distribution and transmission, as well as demand. It
also identifies some positive impacts of changes to climate.
“Wind climate may change during the 20 to 30 year lifetime of a
typical windfarm,” it adds. “The construction of a new windfarm is
very costly and developers require sites with a favourable wind
resource, both now and into the future. Understanding the likelihood
of future wind climate changes may assist investment decisions.”
“By the 2050s, within the lifecycle of current and planned energy
infrastructure, generating effectiveness, network resilience and
energy demand will alter due to climate change,” the report
explains. “Present climate information does not enable the industry
to make informed decisions on future infrastructure and operational
requirements; however, good decisions are needed to ensure future UK
energy security and affordability.”
The study found that “several fundamental energy industry processes
are likely to be affected by climate change, or are vulnerable to
weather changes that are not well understood,” with peak demand for
electricity moving to summer for air conditioning in London. “This
peak is set to increase, and become replicated in other cities as
climate change increases the demand for energy for air-conditioning
and refrigeration.”
Rising sea levels will impede construction of new nuclear reactors
and coal, oil and gas power stations along the coast, and average
sea level will rise globally by 9 cm to 69 cm by 2080.
The medium priority climate change impacts identified were “changes
to wind power capacity; changes to wind power intermittency;
increased biomass for combustion; impacts of climate change on
offshore design criteria; damage to distribution and transmission
infrastructure by subsidence, flooding, icing and strong wind;
increased requirement for de-rating of overhead cables to keep above
sag limits; impacts of sea-level rise and changes to coastal flow on
tidal barrages.”
The study presented a generic methodology to identify the
deficiencies and create improvements in the modeling of climate
fields for specific weather sensitive activities, and was used to
assess inaccuracies in the modeled wind speed and direction for the
Scroby Sands offshore windfarm. “All of the models assessed
underestimated the wind speed but were consistent with two
meteorological stations in the region; the methodology was used to
identify possible explanations for the discrepancy and make
recommendations to investigate them.”
Historical climate for Europe was categorized into weather regimes
in a range of earlier studies, but the report says it is not known
how these regimes relate to impacts on the energy industry, such as
which regimes produce the most wind power. “Holistic improvements in
climate models are needed to deliver the particular improvements in
wind gusts and small-scale wind features that would be of particular
use to the energy industry.”
The report calls for methods to be developed which will enable the
industry to reduce its risk through model simulation of current
climate to be compared with industry data, such as windfarm
observations. It wants an investigation of the relationship between
weather regimes and production of wind power.
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