A service providing climate change indicators tailored for the energy sector (CLIM4ENERGY)

Due to ongoing climate change, the energy industry has to cope with major issues. Low-carbon energies have to grow rapidly in the coming decades to avoid exceeding the 2°C threshold (and try to remain below 1.5°C). This rapid transition towards renewables makes the energy production, transmission and distribution increasingly sensitive to weather and climate variability.

In this context, energy producers need to anticipate resources, their variability at seasonal timescales and their trends over decades. Grid operators need to identify black-out risks. Electricity traders need to anticipate energy prices depending on the availability of combined resources. Climate change also modulates the weather impact to energy systems. Changing precipitation patterns may affect the management of hydropower resources. Changes in winds, temperature and radiation may affect the variable renewable resources. Investments for infrastructures and networks, refining and distribution must account for unavoidable climate change effects such as future sea level rise. Extreme events have changing occurrence frequencies, inducing a shift in associated risks.

CLIM4ENERGY will bring together the complementary expertise of 7 climate research and service centers and 11 energy practitioners, acting as co-designers, to demonstrate, from case studies, the value chain from climate variables to actionable information in the energy sector. As a proof of concept, it will deliver 9 energy-relevant pan-European indicators of climate trends and variability with cross-sectoral consistency, documentation and guidance, estimation of uncertainties, and demonstration of use.