From DOE/OAK RIDGE NATIONAL LABORATORY and the “calculate the uncertainty of chaos” department
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., July 29, 2016 – Climate and energy scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a new method to pinpoint which electrical service areas will be most vulnerable as populations grow and temperatures rise.
“For the first time, we were able to apply data at a high enough resolution to be relevant,” said ORNL’s Melissa Allen, co-author of “Impacts of Climate Change on Sub-regional Electricity Demand and Distribution in the Southern United States,” published in Nature Energy.
Allen and her team developed new algorithms that combine ORNL’s unique infrastructure and population datasets with high-resolution climate simulations run on the lab’s Titan supercomputer. The integrated approach identifies substations at the neighborhood level and determines their ability to handle additional demand based on predicted changes in climate and population.
The new, high-resolution capability can explore the interconnections in complex systems such as critical infrastructure and weather and determine potential pathways to adapt to future global change.
“These results can affect how future service areas are defined and where new substation capacity within the national grid may need to be located,” Allen said.
The authors note the study could inform city leaders and utilities when planning for adjustments or upgrades to existing infrastructure. The analysis also helps decision makers prepare resources needed for population movement in response to future extreme weather events, particularly in the Gulf Coast region. After a natural disaster, such as a high intensity hurricane, tens of thousands could be displaced to areas ill-equipped to handle the sudden influx of people for an unknown period of time.
For this analysis, the research team examined impacts of population and temperature changes through 2050 in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas, but Allen said that the method could be applied to other regions.
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Co-authors of the study were ORNL’s Mohammed Olama and Joshua Fu and Steven Fernandez from the University of Tennessee. Fu has a joint appointment at ORNL. This research was supported by DOE’s Office of Science. Additional power data for this project was provided by the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.
The Titan supercomputer is part of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility, which is a DOE Office of Science User Facility.
The paper: http://www.nature.com/articles/nenergy2016103
Impacts of climate change on sub-regional electricity demand and distribution in the southern United States
Abstract:
High average temperatures lead to high regional electricity demand for cooling buildings, and large populations generally require more aggregate electricity than smaller ones do. Thus, future global climate and population changes will present regional infrastructure challenges regarding changing electricity demand. However, without spatially explicit representation of this demand or the ways in which it might change at the neighbourhood scale, it is difficult to determine which electricity service areas are most vulnerable and will be most affected by these changes. Here we show that detailed projections of changing local electricity demand patterns are viable and important for adaptation planning at the urban level in a changing climate. Employing high-resolution and spatially explicit tools, we find that electricity demand increases caused by temperature rise have the greatest impact over the next 40 years in areas serving small populations, and that large population influx stresses any affected service area, especially during peak demand.
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Power supplies are usually stable either side of summer and winter , here in oz most blackouts are in summer more so when we get days over 40 and a few in a row , more severe storms in southern oz usually around summer .
Not sure if a computer game is needed to work all this out !
Where’s the heat?
So many graphs show an increasing AVERAGE trend in temperatures just like in another thread today for temperatures in the Arctic by DMI. But it appears that the high temperatures are flat or declining and the low temperatures are less cold resulting in an average upward trend. There are many, many similar temperature records.
So, where is the “heat” coming from in these models? Confirmation bias?
http://static.skepticalscience.com/pics/DMI_daily_small_update.JPG
Bob is correct; electric utilities have been putting their businesses on the line for decades forecasting and building facilities for loads. As someone who has been responsible for planning and building electric facilities from regional down to neighborhood levels, I believe that no responsible electric utility would even consider planning any generation, transmission or distribution facilities based on government “scientists” playing with their DOE supercomputer to speculate as to temperatures and population densities down to the local level decades in the future. In the real world people lose their jobs over such stupid games.
Dave Fair
What the hell is a Climate and energy scientists?
“For this analysis, the research team examined impacts … through 2050.” That word “research.” It does not mean what they think it means. This is projection based on projection.
Retired Kit P, wassup? I’ve never seen you lash out like this before.
…Faked name…..http://www.bines.com/
Hi Marcus. Could you explain? I don’t understand your link.
He’s been like this for a little while now and getting worse. I used to read his comments but I no longer bother, they are purely bad-tempered rants with no logic in them. He’s also gone from attacking one or two at a time to attacking just about everybody over any stupid thing he can find. He has serious attitude problems and no patience with anyone.
Marcus? I don’t understand your link. Could you clarify?
…A.D. That is where clicking on his name links to…use to be very different…
Thank you, Marcus.
I was a target of one of Retired Kit P’s insult campaigns only two days back.
His comments have been eviscerated of actual content and now contain only anger and impatience.
Unfortunately, when a person merely insults other commenters but makes no substantial points and provides no supporting evidence or alternative critique it is impossible to ascertain what world view that person has.
With no counter logic or evidence provided, I could not determine what it was about my comments that Kit P was criticizing. At least now, from this thread I have determined that he is running a committed vendetta against domestic wood stove use.
But, how do we explain the descent into pure vitriol?
Hypoglycemia perhaps or a stroke, brain tumour or neurological degeneration?
These things happen. And if any of the above then he has my sympathy.
But, if these are not the explanation then he needs to be told that he is now trolling internet threads with contentless banality and adding nothing to the discussion beyond creating bad feelings.
Obviously a person who trolls down a thread calling most contributors an “idiot” is in danger of making themselves look like the idiot.
Kit P: You are wasting your time and everyone elses by mindlessly attacking strangers on the internet.
Do you have nothing better to do with your days?
Has it really come to this?
Why not take up a hobby. Perhaps one where you can share and be appreciated for your engineering skills.
Trolling is for teenagers who have minimal information and maximal rage.
Amd quit freaking out about the dangers of woodburning stoves.
I love my wood burning stove. I’ve used several of them for several decades with zero incidents. I’m aware of the small risk and I choose to take it. That doesn’t make me an idiot.
A bit off subject, but I had a question for power engineers who might be keeping up with Solid Oxide Fuel Cells. My understanding is that these cells can use the fuels we already have in abundance and that they have a maximum theoretical overall efficiency (fuel to usable power) of 60%, with byproducts of CO2 and water. How does this compare with fuel-to-wallplug efficiencies for the power grid, and—if they are comparable in efficiency—wouldn’t it make sense to distribute power generation (perhaps even to the housing unit level) and to move away from widely distributed (and vulnerable to sabotage) power grids?
On the subject of predicted problems (there certainly are no shortage of these, are there?) I’m convinced that a determined modeler can create virtually any prediction desired, especially given that the assumptions coded in come from the modeler to begin with.
The expected fraction of a degree rse in temperatures in most places, even if the worst scenario of the IPCC should come to pass – courtesy of the sun of course – the increase in the use of air conditioning will be impossible to measure. However, population growth, which has little to do with the suggested warming could be a significant factor,but very hard to predict using climate models.
“The new, high-resolution capability can explore the interconnections in complex systems such as critical infrastructure and weather and determine potential pathways to adapt to future global change.”
Engineers in the power industry have been analyzing the grid for decades to identify weaknesses and vulnerabilities, particularly to point failures that may lead to cascading collapses such as the 1965 New England blackout.
Compared to the 1965 event, the later ‘massive blackouts’ such as 1977 and 2003 have been limited in scope and duration.
Hacker attacks on the power grid are also being considered, with improved cybersecurity measures being put in place continually.
To be effective a hacker attack would have to target several related locations effectively and simultaneously – not an easy task when the IP addresses of the locations say nothing about their interconnectivity.
Let’s see what EPRI has to say about it.
I would trust EPRIs computer modelling of grid stability over DOE/ORNL’s.
…fear the squirrels….
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/12/a-terrifying-and-hilarious-map-of-squirrel-attacks/