Projected changes in wind speed and its energy potential in China using a high‐resolution regional climate model

Following its commitment to Paris Agreement in 2015, China has started to explore potential renewable energy solutions with low carbon emissions to mitigate global warming. Though wind energy is one of the most cost‐effective solutions and has been favored for climate policy development around the world, its high sensitivity to climate change raises some critical issues for the long‐term effectiveness in providing sustainable energy supply. Particularly, how wind speed and its energy potential in China will change in the context of global warming is still not well understood. In this paper, we simulate the near‐surface wind speed over China using the PRECIS regional climate modeling system under different RCP emission scenarios for assessing the possible changes in wind speed and wind energy availability over China throughout the 21^st century. Overall, the PRECIS model can reasonably reproduce the mesoscale climatological near‐surface wind speed and directions as documented in reanalysis data across most regions of China, while some local discrepancies are reported in the southwestern regions. In the future, the annual mean wind speed would be decreasing in most regions of China, except for a slightly increase in the southeast. The expected changes in wind speed are characterized with different amplitudes and rates under different RCP emission scenarios. The changes in the spatial distribution of wind speed seem to be sensitive for RCP climate emission scenarios, especially in the late 21^st century. The spatiotemporal changes in wind energy potential exhibit a similar behavior to those in near‐surface wind speed, but the magnitudes of these changes are larger. In general, the wind power density is expected to increase by over 5% in winter in the major wind fields in China (ie, Northwest, Northcentral and Northeast), while significant decreases (by about 6% on average) are projected for other seasons (ie, spring, summer and autumn). By contrast, the wind energy potential in the northeast would increase over most months in the year, especially in winter and summer. The results of this research are of great importance for understanding where and to what extent the wind energy can be utilized to contribute renewable energy system development in China in support of its long‐term climate change mitigation commitment.     

Assessment of projected temperature impacts from climate change on the U.S. electric power sector using the Integrated Planning Model®

This study analyzes the potential impacts of changes in temperature due to climate change on the U.S. power sector, measuring the energy, environmental, and economic impacts of power system changes due to temperature changes under two emissions trajectories—with and without emissions mitigation. It estimates the impact of temperature change on heating and cooling degree days, electricity demand, and generating unit output and efficiency. These effects are then integrated into a dispatch and capacity planning model to estimate impacts on investment decisions, emissions, system costs, and power prices for 32 U.S. regions. Without mitigation actions, total annual electricity production costs in 2050 are projected to increase 14% ($51 billion) because of greater cooling demand as compared to a control scenario without future temperature changes. For a scenario with global emissions mitigation, including a reduction in U.S. power sector emissions of 36% below 2005 levels in 2050, the increase in total annual electricity production costs is approximately the same as the increase in system costs to satisfy the increased demand associated with unmitigated rising temperatures.     

The impact of climate change on the European energy system

Climate change can affect the economy via many different channels in many different sectors. The POLES global energy model has been modified to widen the coverage of climate change impacts on the European energy system. The impacts considered are changes in heating and cooling demand in the residential and services sector, changes in the efficiency of thermal power plants, and changes in hydro, wind (both on- and off-shore) and solar PV electricity output. Results of the impacts of six scenarios on the European energy system are presented, and the implications for European energy security and energy imports are presented.Main findings include: demand side impacts (heating and cooling in the residential and services sector) are larger than supply side impacts; power generation from fossil-fuel and nuclear sources decreases and renewable energy increases; and impacts are larger in Southern Europe than in Northern Europe.There remain many more climate change impacts on the energy sector that cannot currently be captured due to a variety of issues including: lack of climate data, difficulties translating climate data into energy-system-relevant data, lack of detail in energy system models where climate impacts act. This paper does not attempt to provide an exhaustive analysis of climate change impacts in the energy sector, it is rather another step towards an increasing coverage of possible impacts.     

Simulating climate change and its effects on the wind energy resource of Ireland

We consider the impact of climate change on the wind energy resource of Ireland using an ensemble of Regional Climate Model (RCM) simulations. The RCM dynamically downscales the coarse information provided by the Global Climate Models (GCMs) and provides high resolution information, on a subdomain covering Ireland. The RCM used in this work is the Rossby Center's RCM (RCA3). The RCA3 model is evaluated by performing simulations of the past Irish climate, driven by European Center for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts ERA‐40 data, and by comparing the output to observations. Results confirm that the output of the RCA3 model exhibits reasonable and realistic features as documented in the historical wind data record. For the investigation of the influence of the future climate under different climate scenarios, the Max Plank Institute's GCM, European Center Hamburg Model, is used to drive the RCA3 model. Simulations are run for a control period 1961‐2000 and future period 2021‐2060. The future climate was simulated using the four Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change emission scenarios A1B, A2, B1 and B2. The results for the downscaled simulations show a substantial overall increase in the energy content of the wind for the future winter months and a decrease during the summer months. The projected changes for summer and winter were found to be statistically significant over most of Ireland. However, the projected changes should be viewed with caution since the climate change signal is of similar magnitude to the variability of the evaluation and control simulations. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Climate change and electricity consumption—Witnessing increasing or decreasing use and costs?

Climate change affects the need for heating and cooling. This paper examines the impact of gradually warming climate on the need for heating and cooling with an econometric multivariate regression model for five countries in Europe along the south–north line. The predicted changes in electricity demand are then used to analyze how climate change impacts the cost of electricity use, including carbon costs. Our main findings are, that in Central and North Europe, the decrease in heating due to climate warming, dominates and thus costs will decrease for both users of electricity and in carbon markets. In Southern Europe climate warming, and the consequential increase in cooling and electricity demand, overcomes the decreased need for heating. Therefore costs also increase. The main contributors are the role of electricity in heating and cooling, and the climatic zone.     

Simulating the future wind energy resource of Ireland using the COSMO‐CLM model

We consider the impact of climate change on the wind energy resource of Ireland using an ensemble of regional climate model (RCM) simulations. The RCM used in this work is the Consortium for Small‐scale Modelling–climate limited‐area modelling (COSMO‐CLM) model. The COSMO‐CLM model was evaluated by performing simulations of the past Irish climate, driven by European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts ERA‐40 data, and comparing the output with observations. For the investigation of the influence of the future climate under different climate scenarios, the Max Planck Institute's global climate model, ECHAM5, was used to drive the COSMO‐CLM model. Simulations are run for a control period 1961–2000 and future period 2021–2060. To add to the number of ensemble members, the control and future simulations were driven by different realizations of the ECHAM5 data. The future climate was simulated using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change emission scenarios, A1B and B1. The research was undertaken to consolidate, and as a continuation of, similar research using the Rossby Centre's RCA3 RCM to investigate the effects of climate change on the future wind energy resource of Ireland. The COSMO‐CLM projections outlined in this study agree with the RCA3 projections, with both showing substantial increases in 60 m wind speed over Ireland during winter and decreases during summer. The projected changes of both studies were found to be statistically significant over most of Ireland. The agreement of the COSMO‐CLM and RCA3 simulation results increases our confidence in the robustness of the projections. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Climate change implications for wind power resources in the Northwest United States

Using statistically downscaled output from four general circulation models (GCMs), we have investigated scenarios of climate change impacts on wind power generation potential in a five-state region within the Northwest United States (Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming). All GCM simulations were extracted from the standardized set of runs created for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Analysis of model runs for the 20th century (20c3m) simulations revealed that the direct output of wind statistics from these models is of relatively poor quality compared with observations at airport weather stations within each state. When the GCM output was statistically downscaled, the resulting estimates of current climate wind statistics are substantially better. Furthermore, in looking at the GCM wind statistics for two IPCC future climate scenarios from the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES A1B and A2), there was significant disagreement in the direct model output from the four GCMs. When statistical downscaling was applied to the future climate simulations, a more coherent story unfolded related to the likely impact of climate change on the region's wind power resource. Specifically, the results suggest that summertime wind speeds in the Northwest may decrease by 5–10%, while wintertime wind speeds may decrease by relatively little, or possibly increase slightly. When these wind statistics are projected to typical turbine hub heights and nominal wind turbine power curves are applied, the impact of the climate change scenarios on wind power may be as high as a 40% reduction in summertime generation potential.     

Modeling global residential sector energy demand for heating and air conditioning in the context of climate change

In this article, we assess the potential development of energy use for future residential heating and air conditioning in the context of climate change. In a reference scenario, global energy demand for heating is projected to increase until 2030 and then stabilize. In contrast, energy demand for air conditioning is projected to increase rapidly over the whole 2000–2100 period, mostly driven by income growth. The associated CO₂ emissions for both heating and cooling increase from 0.8 Gt C in 2000 to 2.2 Gt C in 2100, i.e. about 12% of total CO₂ emissions from energy use (the strongest increase occurs in Asia). The net effect of climate change on global energy use and emissions is relatively small as decreases in heating are compensated for by increases in cooling. However, impacts on heating and cooling individually are considerable in this scenario, with heating energy demand decreased by 34% worldwide by 2100 as a result of climate change, and air-conditioning energy demand increased by 72%. At the regional scale considerable impacts can be seen, particularly in South Asia, where energy demand for residential air conditioning could increase by around 50% due to climate change, compared with the situation without climate change.     

Heating and cooling energy demand and related emissions of the German residential building stock under climate change

The housing sector is a major consumer of energy. Studies on the future energy demand under climate change which also take into account future changes of the building stock, renovation measures and heating systems are still lacking. We provide the first analysis of the combined effect of these four influencing factors on the future energy demand for room conditioning of residential buildings and resulting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Germany until 2060. We show that the heating energy demand will decrease substantially in the future. This shift will mainly depend on the number of renovated buildings and climate change scenarios and only slightly on demographic changes. The future cooling energy demand will remain low in the future unless the amount of air conditioners strongly increases. As a strong change in the German energy mix is not expected, the future GHG emissions caused by heating will mainly depend on the energy demand for future heating.     

The effects of changes in the climate on the energy demands of buildings

It is generally accepted that climate changes will have a major effect on our lives. However, buildings will also be faced with climate changes, and these changes will have an impact on indoor comfort, energy demands and the efficiency of building services, especially on those supporting free cooling and free heating. In order to predict the expected changes in a building's thermal response during its lifetime, it is necessary to look at the climate changes predicted for the future. In our study, the climate changes were considered by using simplified mathematical models combined with available test reference years to establish ‘corrected test reference years’. A transient simulation tool, TRNSYS, was used to simulate the indoor climate and the useful energy demand for the heating and cooling of different buildings with different free‐cooling techniques. In order to predict the expected changes in a building's thermal response, the meteorological parameters for the moderate, continental climate region of Slovenia were taken into account. The study shows that during a building's lifetime, significant changes in useful energy demands can be expected—a decrease in the useful energy demand for heating of between 23 and 40% and an up‐to‐38‐times increase in the useful energy needed for mechanical cooling. In buildings without mechanical cooling, the efficiency of the different free‐cooling techniques should be increased by between 100 and 200% to ensure the same living comfort. The results presented in the study confirm that it is necessary to evaluate the consequences of global climate changes from the point of view of energy use in buildings, their construction and the buildings' service installations. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Vulnerability of wind power resources to climate change in the continental United States

Renewable energy resources will play a key role in meeting the world's energy demand over the coming decades. Unfortunately, these resources are all susceptible to variations in climate, and hence vulnerable to climate change. Recent findings in the atmospheric science literature suggest that the impacts of greenhouse gas induced warming are likely to significantly alter climate patterns in the future. In this paper we investigate the potential impacts of climate change on wind speeds and hence on wind power, across the continental US. General Circulation Model output from the Canadian Climate Center and the Hadley Center were used to provide a range of possible variations in seasonal mean wind magnitude. These projections were used to investigate the vulnerability of current and potential wind power generation regions. The models were generally consistent in predicting that the US will see reduced wind speeds of 1.0 to 3.2% in the next 50 years, and 1.4 to 4.5% over the next 100 years. In both cases the Canadian model predicted larger decreases in wind speeds. At regional scales the two models showed some similarities in early years of simulations (e.g. 2050), but diverged significantly in their predictions for 2100. Hence, there is still a great deal of uncertainty regarding how wind fields will change in the future. Nevertheless, the two models investigated here are used as possible scenarios for use in investigating regional wind power vulnerabilities, and point to the need to consider climate variability and long term climate change in citing wind power facilities.     

Projected impacts of climate change on wind energy density in the United States

Wind-generated electricity is a growing renewable energy resource. Because wind results from the uneven heating (and resulting pressure gradients) of the Earth, future wind resources may be affected by anticipated climate change. Many studies have used global and regional climate models to predict trends in the future wind resource over the continental United States. While some of these studies identified regions that are expected to gain wind energy, their results often come with a high degree of uncertainty, and lack of agreement across different climate models. In this paper we focus on wind energy density as a measure of the available wind resource over the continental United States. We estimate the change in wind energy density from the period 1968–2000 to the period 2038–2070 by using output from four regional climate models from the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP). We find strong agreement across all 4 models that the wind energy resource is expected to increase in parts of Kansas, Oklahoma, and northern Texas – a region already in possession of both large scale generating capacity and political support for wind energy.     

Comparing electricity,heat and biogas storages’ impacts on renewable energy integration

Increasing penetration of fluctuating energy sources for electricity generation, heating, cooling and transportation increase the need for flexibility of the energy system to accommodate the fluctuations of these energy sources. Controlling production, controlling demand and utilising storage options are the three general categories of measures that may be applied for ensuring balance between production and demand, however with fluctuating energy sources, options are limited, and flexible demand has also demonstrated limited perspective. This article takes its point of departure in an all-inclusive 100% renewable energy scenario developed for the Danish city Aalborg based on wind power, bio-resources and low-temperature geothermal heat. The article investigates the system impact of different types of energy storage systems including district heating storage, biogas storage and electricity storage. The system is modelled in the energy systems analyses model energyPRO with a view to investigating how the different storages marginally affect the amount of wind power that may be integrated applying the different storage options and the associated economic costs. Results show the largest system impact but also most costly potential are in the form of electricity storages.     

风电与储能联合运行的碳减排效果

在全球能源危机和环境污染的背景下,风电—储能联合运行系统对电力行业的节能减排有重大影响。将风电和储能变量同时引入供给函数均衡模型来模拟风电—储能联合运行系统提供的基荷电量,并在此基础上通过情景分析分别估算了发电企业在风电系统、储能系统及风电—储能联合运行系统3种情景下的污染气体排放量。结果表明,各发电企业在利益最大化目标的驱使下将不断增加储能量,使得联合运行系统比单独的风电或储能系统具有更高的排放量,且排放量的大小受储能容量的影响。     

A modeling approach for investigating climate change impacts on renewable energy utilization

In this study, an integrated community‐scale energy model (ICEM) was developed for supporting renewable energy management (REM) systems planning with the consideration of changing climatic conditions. Through quantitatively reflecting interactive relationships among various renewable energy resources under climate change, not only the impacts of climate change on each individual renewable energy but also the combined effects on power‐generation sector from renewable energy resources could be incorporated within a general modeling framework. Also, discrete probability levels associated with various climate change impacts on the REM system could be generated. Moreover, the ICEM could facilitate capacity–expansion planning for energy‐production facilities within a multi‐period and multi‐option context in order to reduce energy‐shortage risks under a number of climate change scenarios. The generated solutions can be used for examining various decision options that are associated with different probability levels when availabilities of renewable energy resources are affected by the changing climatic conditions. A series of probability levels of hydropower‐, wind‐ and solar‐energy availabilities can be integrated into the optimization process. The developed method has been applied to a case of long‐term REM planning for three communities. The generated solutions can provide desired energy resource/service allocation and capacity–expansion plans with a minimized system cost, a maximized system reliability and a maximized energy security. Tradeoffs between system costs, renewable energy availabilities and energy‐shortage risks can also be tackled with the consideration of climate change, which would have both positive and negative impacts on the system cost, energy supply and greenhouse‐gas emission. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Austria's wind energy potential – A participatory modeling approach to assess socio-political and market acceptance

Techno-economic assessments confirm the potential of wind energy to contribute to a low carbon bioeconomy. The increasing diffusion of wind energy, however, has turned wind energy acceptance into a significant barrier with respect to the deployment of wind turbines. This article assesses whether, and at what cost, Austrian renewable energy targets can be met under different expansion scenarios considering the socio-political and market acceptance of wind energy. Land-use scenarios have been defined in a participatory modeling approach with stakeholders from various interest groups. We calculated the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for all of the potential wind turbine sites, which we used to generate wind energy supply curves. The results show that wind energy production could be expanded to 20% of the final end energy demand in three out of four scenarios. However, more restrictive criteria increase LCOE by up to 20%. In contrast to common views that see local opposition against wind projects as the main barrier for wind power expansion, our participatory modeling approach indicates that even on the level of key stakeholders, the future possible contribution of wind energy to Austrian renewable energy targets reaches from almost no further expansion to very high shares of wind energy.     

A 100% wind,water, sunlight (WWS) all-sector energy plan for Washington State

This study analyzes the potential and consequences of Washington State's use of wind, water, and sunlight (WWS) to produce electricity and electrolytic hydrogen for 100% of its all-purposes energy (electricity, transportation, heating/cooling, industry) by 2050, with 80–85% conversion by 2030. Electrification plus modest efficiency measures can reduce Washington State's 2050 end-use power demand by ∼39.9%, with ∼80% of the reduction due to electrification, and can stabilize energy prices since WWS fuel costs are zero. The remaining demand can be met, in one scenario, with ∼35% onshore wind, ∼13% offshore wind, ∼10.73% utility-scale PV, ∼2.9% residential PV, ∼1.5% commercial/government PV, ∼0.65% geothermal, ∼0.5% wave, ∼0.3% tidal, and ∼35.42% hydropower. Converting will require only 0.08% of the state's land for new footprint and ∼2% for spacing between new wind turbines (spacing that can be used for multiple purposes). It will further result in each person in the state saving ∼$85/yr in direct energy costs and ∼$950/yr in health costs [eliminating ∼830 (190–1950)/yr statewide premature air pollution mortalities] while reducing global climate costs by ∼$4200/person/yr (all in 2013 dollars). Converting will therefore improve health and climate while reducing costs.     

储能技术在冷热电三联供系统中的研究现状与应用

冷热电三联供（CCHP）系统是利用一次能源或可再生能源发电,并通过多种余热回收设备高效利用余热,建立在能源的综合梯级利用基础上的产能系统。用户负荷动态变化及可再生能源输出不稳定会导致冷热电联供系统供、需侧能量不匹配,储能技术可有效解决该问题。本文总结了CCHP系统中储能技术类型及其研究现状,阐明了CCHP系统中电能储存和热能储存技术的应用方式。指出在传统能源与可再生能源相结合、供能系统越发复杂化的能源发展态势下,系统特性、配置优化和对不同场景制定出运行策略是储能技术与CCHP集成系统未来的研究方向。     

Key factors affecting long-term penetration of global onshore wind energy integrating top-down and bottom-up approaches

We quantified key factors affecting the penetration of global onshore wind energy by 2050. We analyzed a large set of scenarios by combining a wind resource model and a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. Five factors, including onshore wind resource potential, investment cost, balancing cost, transmission cost and climate change mitigation policy, were considered to generate 96 scenarios and regression analysis was used to assess relevance among the factors. We found that the strongest factors were resource potential and climate target, followed by wind power technology investment cost. Other factors, such as balancing and transmission costs, had relatively smaller impacts. World total onshore wind power in 2050 increases by 13.2 and 15.5 (41% and 49% of 2005 total power generation, respectively) EJ/year if wind potential rises from low to medium and high levels, respectively. Furthermore, 5.9, 17.8, and 24.3 EJ/year of additional wind power could be generated under climate targets of 650, 550 and 450 ppm CO_2-eq, respectively. Moreover, reducing wind power technology investment cost would increase global wind power by another 9.2 EJ/year. The methodology can be extended to assess other mitigation technologies if the related data is available.     

小型燃气轮机CCHP系统变工况性能入口加热调控研究

提出了一种利用冷热电联产系统(CCHP)低温烟气与环境空气混和加热控制压气机入口温度,提升燃气轮机冷热电系统变工况性能的方法,并以1.9 MW小型燃气轮机OPRA16为例,建立了CCHP系统模型,分析了调控方法的效果、机理。结果表明,入口混和加热可以有效改善冷热电联产系统变工况下系统性能,并扩展系统节能运行范围。与传统燃料流量调控方法相比,新型调控手段下夏季制冷与冬季供热模式下系统节能率分别提升5.7%和21.6%。