CAREER: Coordinating climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies across the energy-water nexus: An integrated research and education framework

本研究将开发概念模型（1）以量化气候如何影响电力部门内发电资源的运行和环境绩效;（2）评估与新兴消费者需求相关的机遇和挑战，（3）制定量化指标，以比较这些不同的供需资源之间的权衡，特别是当它们与气候缓解有关时，适应和环境可持续性优先事项。每个目标都利用了首席研究员（PI）通过过去的能源-水关系工作建立的见解和方法。该项目将为PI的长期目标奠定基础，即通过市场结构和自动化协调电力供应商和电力消费者的行为，以最大限度地提高电力部门的环境可持续性，抗干扰能力，和效率。这个职业生涯项目利用物理学-基于建模技术，以建立一个统计框架，提供概率洞察如何气候变化可能会影响电力部门的运作和环境外部性，通过极端的历史连续体气候变化预测。这些框架旨在通过未来变暖带来的挑战的透镜，比较传统和新兴的供应方和需求方资源。在能源领域，通过这个CAREER项目开发的知识有望成为重要的一步，使新的方法能够为电力基础设施建设，DSM干预，未来的电力市场结构和考虑区域和环境条件（而不仅仅是可靠性和成本）的实时定价策略提供信息和评估权衡。该项目的广义统计框架也可用于评估其他重要基础设施，如水、农业和运输系统，在气候脆弱性、减缓和适应权衡方面的差异。这一框架还使分析人员能够向利益攸关方提供气候条件概率分布的预期绩效权衡，而不是在某些利益攸关方群体中可能有争议的单一预测。利用PI作为南加州大学常驻教师的角色，年度外展活动将把服务不足的K-12团体与PI宿舍的新生联系起来，创造一种导师精神，同时赋予服务不足的少数民族知识，以倡导他们自己的环境正义。这些活动将利用Parkside互动可持续发展实验室，由PI建立的社区园艺空间，通过基于活动的环境规划向学生介绍可持续发展。通过这个项目产生的主题，数据和模型将被纳入PI现有的本科生和研究生课程，学生将面临为年轻学生创建基于网络的教育内容的挑战，以促进知识共享。在更广泛的背景下，干旱和热浪已经导致世界各地的大规模停电。考虑到2040年全球装机容量预计将增长140%，在区域气候背景下改善和保护电网性能的通用框架对于做出明智的投资决策至关重要。通过连接K-12，本科生，研究生和他们更广泛的社会和政策制定社区，在教育多元化的劳动力，准备应对社会的关键挑战方面取得进展。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

This research will develop conceptual models (1) to quantify how climate influences the operational and environmental performance of electric power generation resources within the power sector; (2) to evaluate the opportunities and challenges associated with emerging consumer demand, and (3) to develop quantitative metrics to compare tradeoffs across these diverse supply and demand resources, particularly as they relate to climate mitigation, adaptation, and environmental sustainability priorities. Each objective leverages insights and methods established through past energy-water nexus work by the Principal Investigator (PI). The project will build a foundation for the PI's long-term goal of creating more robust, adaptive, and sustainable power systems by coordinating the behavior of power suppliers and power consumers through market structures and automation to maximize the power sector's environmental sustainability, resilience to disruption, and efficiency.This CAREER project utilizes physics-based modeling techniques to build a statistical framework that offers probabilistic insight into how climate change might affect the operation and environmental externalities of the power sector across a continuum of historical through extreme climate change projections. Frameworks are designed to compare conventional and emerging supply-side and demand-side resources through the lens of the challenges imposed by future warming. In the energy sector, the knowledge developed through this CAREER project promises to be an important step to enable new methodologies to inform and assess tradeoffs for electric infrastructure build-outs, DSM interventions, future electricity market structures, and real-time pricing strategies that consider regional and environmental conditions (rather than reliability and cost alone). The project's generalized statistical framework could also be applied to assess how other critical infrastructures, such as water, agricultural and transportation systems, vary in terms of their climate vulnerability, mitigation, and adaptation tradeoffs. This framework also allows analysts to present stakeholders with anticipated performance tradeoffs across a probabilistic distribution of climate conditions, rather than a single projection that might be contentious in some stakeholder groups. Annual outreach events leveraging the PI's role as a Resident Faculty at USC will connect underserved K-12 groups with freshmen in the PI's dormitory, creating a spirit of mentorship, while empowering underserved minorities with the knowledge to advocate for their own environmental justice. These events will utilize the Parkside Interactive Sustainability Laboratory, a community gardening space built by the PI to introduce students to sustainability through activity-based environmental programming. The themes, data, and models generated through this project will be incorporated into the PI's existing undergraduate and graduate classes, where students will be challenged to create web-based educational content for younger students to facilitate knowledge sharing. In the broader context, drought and heatwaves have already prompted significant power curtailments across the world. Considering that installed generation capacity is projected to grow by 140% globally by 2040, generalized frameworks to improve and protect the performance of the power grid within the context of regional climate will be critical for making wise investment decisions. By connecting K-12, undergraduate, graduate students and their broader social and policy-making communities, progress will be made in educating a diverse workforce, prepared to address society's critical challenges.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.