DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory
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.