HR: 09:15h
AN: GC11B-06 INVITED    [Abstracts]
TI: Climate Change Impacts on the Electric Power System in the Western United States
AU: * Veselka, T D
EM: tdveselka@anl.gov
AF: Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 South Cass Ave, Argonne, IL 60439, United States
AU: Botterud, A
EM: abotterud@anl.gov
AF: Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 South Cass Ave, Argonne, IL 60439, United States
AU: Conzelmann, G
EM: guenter@anl.gov
AF: Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 South Cass Ave, Argonne, IL 60439, United States
AU: Koritarov, V
EM: koritarov@anl.gov
AF: Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 South Cass Ave, Argonne, IL 60439, United States
AU: Poch, L A
EM: lapoch@anl.gov
AF: Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 South Cass Ave, Argonne, IL 60439, United States
AU: Wang, J
EM: jianhui.wang@anl.gov
AF: Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 South Cass Ave, Argonne, IL 60439, United States
AB: Future climate change is projected to vary substantially across regions. Changes in regional temperature and precipitation patterns may have significant implications on our existing and future power system infrastructure. In this paper, we use results from regional climate models to examine the impacts of projected changes in temperature and precipitation on the development and operations of the power system in the Western United States. We study three scenarios to evaluate potential effects of climate change on the electricity demand as well as on the power supply side. Impacts are measured in terms of changes in investment requirements, fuel and generation mix, emissions of greenhouse gases and criteria pollutants, and thermal power water withdrawals and consumption. We also identify potential issues regarding the western transmission grid. Our methodology includes a long-term investment algorithm that takes into account interdependencies between hydroelectric, thermal power, and non-dispatchable resources, such as wind turbines. We also include temporal aspects associated with hydropower energy constraints, wind variability, thermal power plant availability, and hourly load profiles. Thermal power plant availability and resulting generation and fuel consumption are based on maintenance outage schedules and a probabilistic dispatch algorithm that accounts for random forced outages. We conclude with some observations regarding the vulnerability of our electricity infrastructure to projected regional climate changes.
DE: 1630 Impacts of global change (1225)
DE: 1637 Regional climate change
SC: Global Environmental Change [GC]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting