Assessing climate change adaptation strategies—the case of drought and heat wave in the French nuclear sector

Abstract

Nuclear energy is a very important component of overall power supply in France. If the effects of future extreme weather events or climate shifts are not addressed, energy systems will be highly vulnerable to extreme weather events or shifts in weather patterns, such as changes in precipitation. Because of the deep uncertainties involved in climate projections and response strategies, any strategy implementation should perform adequately regardless of which scenario actually materialises. In this paper, we analyse the effects of drought and heat wave in the French nuclear energy sector using the Strategy Robustness Visualisation Method. The key feature of the method is the modelling of uncertainty of the quantitative indicators by (min, max) values plotted on radar plots such that each strategy option’s performance can be visually inspected for robustness. The method can be utilised as a “module” of its own in different uncertainty management approaches. Based on the case study, the presented adaptation strategies “Maintaining industrial production and final demand” and “Smart grid infrastructure” were more robust than the “No planned or automatic adaptation”.