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Incorporating climate change effects into the European power system adequacy assessment using a post-processing method

Inès Harang, Fabian Heymann, Laurens P. Stoop

TL;DR

This study develops a post-processing framework to embed climate-change effects into Europe’s power-system adequacy assessment (MAF2025) without full climate-downscaling. It focuses on two drivers—temperature-driven changes in electricity demand and shifts in hydro inflows—and tests three load-shaping methods, selecting a temperature-shift approach that preserves the demand sensitivity curve. Using ENTSO-E PEMMDB data and literature-informed inflow modifications (reprofiling and rescaling), the authors show that climate change can reduce LOLE by about 56–59% depending on the scenario, with demand-driven effects generally reducing stress while hydro-driven changes can offset or even intensify reliability concerns. The work demonstrates the feasibility and limitations of a lightweight, post-processing approach for continental-scale climate-robust adequacy studies, highlighting uncertainties, extremes, and the need for probabilistic treatment and integrated climate-energy analyses.

Abstract

The demand-supply balance of electricity systems is fundamentally linked to climate conditions. In light of this, the present study aims to model the effect of climate change on the European electricity system, specifically on its long-term reliability. A resource adequate power system -- a system where electricity supply covers demand -- is sensitive to generation capacity, demand patterns, and the network structure and capacity. Climate change is foreseen to affect each of these components. In this analysis, we focused on two drivers of power system adequacy: the impact of temperature variations on electricity demand, and of water inflows changes on hydro generation. Using a post-processing approach, based on results found in the literature, the inputs of a large-scale electricity market model covering the European region were modified. The results show that climate change may decrease total LOLE (Loss of Load Expectation) hours in Europe by more than 50%, as demand will largely decrease because of a higher temperatures during winter. We found that the climate change impact on demand tends to decrease LOLE values, while the climate change effects on hydrological conditions tend to increase LOLE values. The study is built on a limited amount of open-source data and can flexibly incorporate various sets of assumptions. Outcomes also show the current difficulties to reliably model the effects of climate change on power system adequacy. Overall, our presented method displays the relevance of climate change effects in electricity network studies.

Incorporating climate change effects into the European power system adequacy assessment using a post-processing method

TL;DR

This study develops a post-processing framework to embed climate-change effects into Europe’s power-system adequacy assessment (MAF2025) without full climate-downscaling. It focuses on two drivers—temperature-driven changes in electricity demand and shifts in hydro inflows—and tests three load-shaping methods, selecting a temperature-shift approach that preserves the demand sensitivity curve. Using ENTSO-E PEMMDB data and literature-informed inflow modifications (reprofiling and rescaling), the authors show that climate change can reduce LOLE by about 56–59% depending on the scenario, with demand-driven effects generally reducing stress while hydro-driven changes can offset or even intensify reliability concerns. The work demonstrates the feasibility and limitations of a lightweight, post-processing approach for continental-scale climate-robust adequacy studies, highlighting uncertainties, extremes, and the need for probabilistic treatment and integrated climate-energy analyses.

Abstract

The demand-supply balance of electricity systems is fundamentally linked to climate conditions. In light of this, the present study aims to model the effect of climate change on the European electricity system, specifically on its long-term reliability. A resource adequate power system -- a system where electricity supply covers demand -- is sensitive to generation capacity, demand patterns, and the network structure and capacity. Climate change is foreseen to affect each of these components. In this analysis, we focused on two drivers of power system adequacy: the impact of temperature variations on electricity demand, and of water inflows changes on hydro generation. Using a post-processing approach, based on results found in the literature, the inputs of a large-scale electricity market model covering the European region were modified. The results show that climate change may decrease total LOLE (Loss of Load Expectation) hours in Europe by more than 50%, as demand will largely decrease because of a higher temperatures during winter. We found that the climate change impact on demand tends to decrease LOLE values, while the climate change effects on hydrological conditions tend to increase LOLE values. The study is built on a limited amount of open-source data and can flexibly incorporate various sets of assumptions. Outcomes also show the current difficulties to reliably model the effects of climate change on power system adequacy. Overall, our presented method displays the relevance of climate change effects in electricity network studies.
Paper Structure (26 sections, 2 equations, 10 figures, 2 tables)

This paper contains 26 sections, 2 equations, 10 figures, 2 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. The limitation of the existing studies
  3. Methods for modelling climate change impacts
  4. Background on climate simulation models
  5. The impact of temperature changes on electric load
  6. Shifting the load with a single aggregated value (S1)
  7. Shifting the load with multiple aggregated values (S2)
  8. Deduct load based on a temperature shift (S3)
  9. Impact of climate change on hydroelectric generation
  10. Methodology and input data
  11. The European adequacy model
  12. Methodology to modify demand files
  13. Methodology to modify river inflows
  14. Reprofiling
  15. Rescaling
  16. ...and 11 more sections

Figures (10)

  • Figure 1: Temperature-load reprofiling and scaling methods to incorporate climate change. Dark blue colours show the original data and load-temperature curve, data points and curves changed by a method in other colours. The scale of this figure is arbitrary.
  • Figure 2: Illustration of the evaluation of the security of supply done in the MAF studiesentso2018mid.
  • Figure 3: Correlation between change in peak load (in % in absolute values) and change in temperature (in C) for each market node.
  • Figure 4: Schematic of the method for reprofiling and rescaling of hydrological resource availability
  • Figure 5: Change in LOLE in models MAF2025 (the base case); MAF2025 (demand CC affected) and MAF2025 (demand and hydro CC affected).
  • ...and 5 more figures