Towards climate resilient urban energy systems: a review.

A T D Perera,Deliang Chen,Vahid M Nik

doi:10.1093/nsr/nwaa134

A T D Perera, Deliang Chen + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwaa134

Copy DOI

Abstract

Climate change and increased urban population are two major concerns for society. Moving towards more sustainable energy solutions in the urban context by integrating renewable energy technologies supports decarbonizing the energy sector and climate change mitigation. A successful transition also needs adequate consideration of climate change including extreme events to ensure the reliable performance of energy systems in the long run. This review provides an overview of and insight into the progress achieved in the energy sector to adapt to climate change, focusing on the climate resilience of urban energy systems. The state-of-the-art methodology to assess impacts of climate change including extreme events and uncertainties on the design and performance of energy systems is described and discussed. Climate resilience is an emerging concept that is increasingly used to represent the durability and stable performance of energy systems against extreme climate events. However, it has not yet been adequately explored and widely used, as its definition has not been clearly articulated and assessment is mostly based on qualitative aspects. This study reveals that a major limitation in the state-of-the-art is the inadequacy of climate change adaptation approaches in designing and preparing urban energy systems to satisfactorily address plausible extreme climate events. Furthermore, the complexity of the climate and energy models and the mismatch between their temporal and spatial resolutions are the major limitations in linking these models. Therefore, few studies have focused on the design and operation of urban energy infrastructure in terms of climate resilience. Considering the occurrence of extreme climate events and increasing demand for implementing climate adaptation strategies, the study highlights the importance of improving energy system models to consider future climate variations including extreme events to identify climate resilient energy transition pathways.

Highlights

According to the Paris Agreement, countries should act to keep the increase in global average temperature to well below 2◦C above pre-industrial levels
Almost two-thirds of the global primary energy use is attributed to urban areas accommodating 3.5 billion people, which leads to 71% of global direct energy-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions [5,6]
Climate resilience can be considered a critical part of climate change adaptation, mostly addressing extreme events and climate disasters

Summary

INTRODUCTION

According to the Paris Agreement, countries should act to keep the increase in global average temperature to well below 2◦C above pre-industrial levels. We should increase energy generation through sustainable approaches to cover future demands and move towards the climate targets This requires a notable change in the energy infrastructure, accommodating renewable energy technologies such as solar and wind. In addition to the altered flow of energy and having prosumers affecting the energy grid, energy storage is getting popular at the domestic scale to profit from the fluctuations in real-time pricing [29], which will be driven by cyber interactions among different parties This can play a critical role in boosting the resilience of energy systems, usually by empowering the autonomous operation of the energy system, especially in the form of distributed energy storage in smart grids, known as community energy storage (CES) [30,35]. Considered for solar, wind and hydro Considered through a global sensitivity analysis Considered

Methodology used to consider uncertainty

CONCLUDING REMARKS

72. NIAC Framework for Establishing Resilience Goals

Findings

77. Keeping the Country Running