Climate change endangers energy supply

Climate change poses enormous supply risks. A new simulation model from EPFL makes this clear. New, sustainable energy systems are mostly designed for today's climate conditions. Climate-related risks are hardly considered in their development. Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) have taken this as an opportunity to develop a stochastically robust simulation method. It shows that the future energy supply is in danger.

"We have observed that current energy systems are designed to be very vulnerable to extreme weather events such as storms and heat waves," Dasun Perera of EPFL's Laboratory of Solar Energy and Building Physics (LESO-PB) in a Communication cited. In addition, climate fluctuations would lead to significant fluctuations in the feed-in of electricity from renewable sources into the grids as well as in energy demand.

So far, he said, no one has attempted to holistically connect the two issues of climate change and energy production. "If we do nothing, our current energy systems will no longer be able to meet demand," said Jean-Louis Scartezzini, head of LESO-PB at EPFL.

The researchers applied their method to 30 Swedish cities. In the process, they calculated 13 climate change scenarios. They found that under extreme conditions, the hourly demand for heating and cooling in the country's entire current housing stock is between 50 and 400 percent above the 20-year historical average. The results apply to much of central Europe.

They have now been published in the magazine "Nature Energy" published.