Supplemental Data for Dyreson et al. 2021, Earth's Future

Supplemental Data for Dyreson et al. 2021, Earth's Future

Publication Title:

The Role of Regional Connections in Planning for Future Power System Operations under Climate Extremes

Abstract:

Extreme climate events can negatively impact power system operations. Identifying the sensitivity of a power system to climate extremes must consider future infrastructure changes. We investigate the sensitivity of a historic Western U.S. power system (5% variable renewable penetration of energy) and a future system (31%) to compound drought and heat wave events. We use an electricity operational model combined with a model of historically extreme drought (for hydropower and freshwater-reliant thermoelectric generators) over the Western U.S. and a synthetic, regionally extreme heat event focused on Southern California (for thermoelectric generators and electricity load). We find that drought has the highest impact on summertime production cost (+10 to +12%), while temperature-based deratings have minimal effect (at most +1%). The heat wave scenario impacting load increases the summertime regional net imports to that region by 10 to 14%, while the drought decreases them by 5 to 12%. Combined heat and drought conditions have a moderate effect on imports to Southern California (-2%) in the historic system and a stronger effect (+8%) in the future system. Southern California dependence on other regions decreases in the summertime with the moderate increase in variable renewable energy (-34% imports), but hourly peak regional imports are maintained under those infrastructure changes. Using a novel method that combines synthetic and historically-driven conditions to test multiple infrastructures, we consolidate the importance of considering compounded heat wave and drought in planning studies and show that region-to-region energy transfers during peak periods are key to optimal operations under climate extremes.

Dataset Summary:

There are four categories of input files:

1) Water-constrainted generation capacity and monthly energy targets for production cost modeling (PNNL)
2) Temperature and precipitation results from 100 simulations [Temerature_precip_simulations]
3) Derating inputs [Derating_inputs]: dry bulb and wet bulb temperature based on four selected simulations and county design point temperature for thermoelectric generation
4) Load inputs [Load_inputs]: hourly county electricity demand temperature sensitivites (slopes), hourly county electricity demand for ten scenarios (baseline year + four simulated years for low VG and moderate VG infrastructures; moderate VG infrastrcutures also incorporate load growth)

As well as the output files for bulk electricity grid operations as simulated by production cost model in a historical and future infrastructure informed by a combination of drought and heat scenarios.

Each data set described in detail in each read me file.