Vulnerability of existing and planned coal-fired power plants in Developing Asia to changes in climate and water resources

Wang, Yaoping; Byers, Edward; Parkinson, Simon; Wanders, Niko; Wada, Yoshihide; Mao, Jiafu; Bielicki, Jeffrey M.

doi:10.1039/c9ee02058f

Cited by 47 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 72 publications

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“…One study of Great Britain found that with an approximate halving of reliable thermal capacity on freshwater under climate change, results in an additional £18-19 billion in system costs over 40 years due to more costly cooling, location options, more fuel use and different capacity decisions 11 . Concerns about climate change have motivated several high-impact studies focusing on the impact of reduced cooling water availability and increased cooling water temperatures on power plant reliability and energy production [12][13][14][15][16] . One notable study at the European scale estimated electricity price impacts from drought under climate change on hydro and thermal plant, finding negative impacts in southern and southeastern European countries, but producer benefits in northern hydro producing countries, which can sell electricity at higher prices to compensate for power plant outages in the south 17 .…”

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Drought and climate change impacts on cooling water shortages and electricity prices in Great Britain

et al. 2020

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The risks of cooling water shortages to thermo-electric power plants are increasingly studied as an important climate risk to the energy sector. Whilst electricity transmission networks reduce the risks during disruptions, more costly plants must provide alternative supplies. Here, we investigate the electricity price impacts of cooling water shortages on Britain's power supplies using a probabilistic spatial risk model of regional climate, hydrological droughts and cooling water shortages, coupled with an economic model of electricity supply, demand and prices. We find that on extreme days (p99), almost 50% (7GW e) of freshwater thermal capacity is unavailable. Annualized cumulative costs on electricity prices range from £29-66m.yr-1 GBP2018, whilst in 20% of cases from £66-95m.yr-1. With climate change, the median annualized impact exceeds £100m.yr-1. The single year impacts of a 1-in-25 year event exceed >£200m, indicating the additional investments justifiable to mitigate the 1 storder economic risks of cooling water shortage during droughts.

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Drought and climate change impacts on cooling water shortages and electricity prices in Great Britain

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“…While our study focuses on Texas, this will likely affect all US power systems as their thermal generator fleets and loads experience warming. An important mediating factor in how climate change will affect future thermal fleets is how those fleets evolve over time (Wang et al 2019). We found that shifting to robust cooling technologies nearly eliminates thermal deratings in high demand hours (SI.3.2), indicating adaptation potential within the existing generator fleet (van Vliet et al 2016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

Compounding climate change impacts during high stress periods for a high wind and solar power system in Texas

Craig

Jaramillo

Hodge

et al. 2020

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Power system planning aims at ensuring that sufficient supply-and demand-side assets exist to meet electricity demand at all times. For a Texas electric power system with high wind and solar penetrations, we quantify how climate change will affect supply and demand during three types of high stress periods for the power grid: high demand hours, high net demand hours, and high system ramp hours. We specifically quantify effects on demand, reductions in available thermal capacity (i.e. thermal deratings), wind and solar generation, and net demand. We estimate each using meteorological variables from five climate change projections (2041-2050) assuming Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 and from a reference period (1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005). All five projections indicate that climate change will increase demand by up to 2 GWh during high demand hours (4% of demand in the reference period) and increase net demand by up to 3 GWh during high net demand periods (6% of net demand in the reference period). All five projections also indicate thermal deratings will increase during high demand and net demand periods by up to 2 GWh and high net demand ramps will increase by up to 2 GW. Overall, our results indicate compounding effects of climate change in Texas will necessitate greater investment in peak and flexible capacity. RECEIVED

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“…Several studies indicate the importance of resource redistribution in alleviating localized resource constraints, including via trade [68,93,102] and electricity transmission [164][165][166], and water conveyance [62]. Thus, infrastructure that allows for the movement of commodities and resources from resource-rich to resource-poor locations stands out as one of the most important nexus solutions.…”

Section: Resource Redistributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrated Solutions for the Water-Energy-Land Nexus: Are Global Models Rising to the Challenge?

Johnson

Burek

Byers

et al. 2019

Water

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Increasing human demands for water, energy, food and materials, are expected to accentuate resource supply challenges over the coming decades. Experience suggests that long-term strategies for a single sector could yield both trade-offs and synergies for other sectors. Thus, long-term transition pathways for linked resource systems should be informed using nexus approaches. Global integrated assessment models can represent the synergies and trade-offs inherent in the exploitation of water, energy and land (WEL) resources, including the impacts of international trade and climate policies. In this study, we review the current state-of-the-science in global integrated assessment modeling with an emphasis on how models have incorporated integrated WEL solutions. A large-scale assessment of the relevant literature was performed using online databases and structured keyword search queries. The results point to the following main opportunities for future research and model development: (1) improving the temporal and spatial resolution of economic models for the energy and water sectors;(2) balancing energy and land requirements across sectors; (3) integrated representation of the role of distribution infrastructure in alleviating resource challenges; (4) modeling of solution impacts on downstream environmental quality; (5) improved representation of the implementation challenges stemming from regional financial and institutional capacity; (6) enabling dynamic multi-sectoral vulnerability and adaptation needs assessment; and (7) the development of fully-coupled assessment frameworks based on consistent, scalable, and regionally-transferable platforms. Improved database management and computational power are needed to address many of these modeling challenges at a global-scale. IntroductionWater, energy and land (WEL) represent fundamental resources needed for human survival and are critical for supporting economic development and ecosystem services, such as flood control, carbon sequestration and biodiversity. Socioeconomic and climate trends are rapidly increasing global demands for WEL resources. Based on the "middle-of-the-road" Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP2) scenario in which population reaches about 9 billion in 2050, food demand is projected to increase on average 74% (59-98%) from 2005 to 2050 [1], primary energy supply will increase on average 92% (81-113%) [2], agricultural land is projected to increase on average 5% (3-7%) [3], and global water demand is projected to increase about 50% [4,5]. Meanwhile, WEL resources are regionally constrained for physical or economic reasons and several global "mega-trends", such as climate change, urbanization, and globalization, are expected to have regional impacts that may either exacerbate or alleviate resource constraints and the associated supply challenges [6]. There is an urgent need to better understand the impacts and vulnerability of human populations and ecosystems to future socioeconomic and climatic change as well as to identify sustainable strategies for m...

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Vulnerability of existing and planned coal-fired power plants in Developing Asia to changes in climate and water resources

Abstract: Water constraints on the coal-fired power plants and deployment of CO2 capture technology in Developing Asia at multiple scales.

Cited by 47 publications

References 72 publications

Drought and climate change impacts on cooling water shortages and electricity prices in Great Britain

Drought and climate change impacts on cooling water shortages and electricity prices in Great Britain

Compounding climate change impacts during high stress periods for a high wind and solar power system in Texas

Integrated Solutions for the Water-Energy-Land Nexus: Are Global Models Rising to the Challenge?

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