Environmental sustainability of Southwestern US utility-scale photovoltaic expansion under changing climate conditions

美国西南部公用事业规模光伏发电扩张在不断变化的气候条件下的环境可持续性

• 批准号: 1940781
• 负责人: Ashley Broadbent
• 金额: $ 29.84万
• 依托单位: Arizona State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-01-15 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1940781&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Environmental; sustainability; Southwestern; US; utility

Photovoltaic (PV) systems can have a local air temperature warming effect that can impact their efficiency and may further exacerbate the warming of the local environment. Interactions between PV, land, and the atmosphere is further complicated by climate changes. The potential for widespread PV deployment to act as a reliable source of renewable energy must therefore be evaluated in a modeling framework that can accurately characterize future regional-scale climatic conditions, faithfully represent relevant PV-land-atmosphere interactions, and assess electricity production. This project targets accurate and robust assessment of climatic effects associated with future deployment of PV systems. The research will couple a PV surface energy balance model that has been developed and extensively evaluated offline by the research team to the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) climate prediction system (referred to as WRF-SolarPV). Through a climate-based application of WRF-SolarPV that accounts for spatially explicit PV deployment extent and configuration, the research team will generate maps of PV deployment “sweet spots” across the Southwestern US, highlighting locations with high levels of sustained solar irradiance that align with suitably low PV module temperatures under a future climate. Specifically, the research will address how future climate may impact the solar resource across the southwestern United States, and what hydro-climatic implications associated with future PV electricity generation can be anticipated. Through an explicit accounting of electricity generation, the research will address key concerns associated with reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and environmental sustainability. The framework to be developed will enable advancements in numerical modeling of energy systems via examination of the regional characteristics of current and future PV-land-atmosphere interactions, including feedbacks among GHG warming, local-hydro-climates, and electricity production in a dynamically interacting system. The research team will develop the open-source state-of-the science tool WRF-SolarPV to be broadly disseminated to the larger climate modeling, engineering and energy communities through the National Center for Atmospheric Research, which supports, maintains and disseminates the WRF system for over 39,000 users in over 160 countries. Development and provision of such a tool is anticipated to be of considerable value to stakeholders considering transition to PV as a renewable source of energy but lacking the assessment tools to do so. The project will also facilitate participation and mentoring of high school students, through an educational collaboration with local public charter schools that have participated in summer intern programs with the research team in the past.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.

光伏（PV）系统可能会产生局部气温变暖效应，从而影响其效率，并可能进一步加剧当地环境的变暖。气候变化使光伏、土地和大气之间的相互作用变得更加复杂。因此，必须在一个建模框架中评估广泛部署光伏发电作为可靠的可再生能源的潜力，该框架可以准确描述未来区域规模的气候条件，忠实地代表相关的光伏-土地-大气相互作用，并评估电力生产。该项目的目标是准确、稳健地评估与未来光伏系统部署相关的气候影响。该研究将把研究团队开发并广泛离线评估的光伏表面能量平衡模型与天气研究和预报（WRF）气候预测系统（简称WRF-SolarPV）结合起来。通过基于气候的 WRF-SolarPV 应用（考虑了空间上明确的光伏部署范围和配置），研究团队将生成美国西南部光伏部署“最佳点”的地图，突出显示持续太阳辐照度较高的位置，这些位置与未来气候下适当较低的光伏组件温度相一致。具体来说，该研究将解决未来气候如何影响美国西南部的太阳能资源，以及与未来光伏发电相关的水文气候影响。通过对发电量的明确核算，该研究将解决与减少温室气体排放和环境可持续性相关的关键问题。待开发的框架将通过检查当前和未来光伏-土地-大气相互作用的区域特征，包括温室气体变暖、当地水文气候和动态相互作用系统中的电力生产之间的反馈，推动能源系统数值模拟的进步。研究团队将开发开源的最先进的科学工具 WRF-SolarPV，并通过国家大气研究中心广泛传播到更大的气候建模、工程和能源社区，该中心为 160 多个国家的 39,000 多个用户支持、维护和传播 WRF 系统。预计开发和提供此类工具对于考虑向光伏作为可再生能源过渡但缺乏评估工具的利益相关者具有相当大的价值。该项目还将通过与过去曾与研究团队一起参加暑期实习计划的当地公立特许学校进行教育合作，促进高中生的参与和指导。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并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，被认为值得支持。