Overcoming the disconnect between energy system and climate modeling

TL;DR

This paper discusses the need to better integrate energy system models with climate data to improve decision-making and climate risk mitigation in energy planning, proposing a research agenda for future development.

Contribution

It identifies key disconnects between energy and climate modeling communities and proposes a comprehensive research agenda to bridge these gaps for improved climate-aware energy modeling.

Findings

Identified critical disconnects between energy and climate modeling communities.

Proposed interdisciplinary activities to incorporate climate data into energy models.

Outlined a long-term transdisciplinary approach for developing energy-specific climate datasets.

Abstract

Energy system models underpin decisions by energy system planners and operators. Energy system modelling faces a transformation: accounting for changing meteorological conditions imposed by climate change. To enable that transformation, a community of practice in energy-climate modelling has started to form that aims to better integrate energy system models with weather and climate models. Here, we evaluate the disconnects between the energy system and climate modelling communities, then lay out a research agenda to bridge those disconnects. In the near-term, we propose interdisciplinary activities for expediting uptake of future climate data in energy system modelling. In the long-term, we propose a transdisciplinary approach to enable development of (1) energy-system-tailored climate datasets for historical and future meteorological conditions and (2) energy system models that can effectively leverage those datasets. This agenda increases the odds of meeting ambitious climate mitigation goals by systematically capturing and mitigating climate risk in energy sector decision making.