Climate science support for robust decision making in wind energy investments and policies

作为向可持续能源经济过渡的一部分，可再生能源的推广具有很大的潜力，可以减轻与人为气候变化有关的风险。在这种情况下，风力发电是一种重要的能源。公共和私营部门对风力发电的投资问题是一个集体行动问题，涉及一系列利益攸关方，包括：风力涡轮机公司;国家电网;能源和气候变化部;能源基础设施工程师;以及能源投资者。然而，风能资源基础就其本质而言对气候波动很敏感（Edenhofer等人，2011年）。这种敏感性对投资决策中假设的成本如何演变到未来具有影响。例如，如果风力模式在风电场的寿命期间发生显著变化，则可能存在搁浅资产的风险。因此，关于未来风力涡轮机的定位和相关基础设施投资的决策需要与不同气候变化情景下的风力潜力模式、现有输电网络的空间分布以及关键利益攸关方的决策标准有关的信息。其中一些信息也存在一定程度的不确定性。虽然科学中的一些不确定性可以用概率来描述，但其他不确定性来源（例如实现特定气候未来所需的全球政策）本质上不是概率性的，因此在做出投资和部署决策时必须以不同的方式对待。在这种情况下，稳健决策框架（RDM：Lempert，2013）可能会有所帮助。RDM不是寻求最佳解决方案，而是提供了一个流程，用于确定在一系列潜在的未来场景中保持稳健的策略。拟议研究的目的是建立一个强大的决策工具，以帮助利益相关者确定风能投资和涡轮机或相关基础设施的位置，从而在各种可能的气候未来中产生令人满意的性能指标。该决策支持工具将利用现有的先进气候建模方法和决策框架，帮助利益相关者可视化能源市场中不同定位策略的脆弱性和权衡。气候信息将由气候模型仿真器PLASIM-ENTSem提供（霍尔顿等人，将在利害关系方的参与下开发、测试和评估决策工具。因此，开发的工具将使利益攸关方能够确定定位战略，这些战略在不同的代表性浓度路径中对一系列不同的气候变化情景具有鲁棒性。通过这种方式，该项目将解决风能部门在建设复原力和管理气候变化风险方面的挑战。Pichs-Madruga河，Sokona，Y.，Seyboth，K.，Kadner，S.，Zwickel，T.，Eickemeier，P.，汉森，G.，Schlömer，S.，施特乔角von和Matschoss，P.：《可再生能源与气候变化减缓：政府间气候变化专门委员会特别报告》，剑桥大学出版社，2011年，Lempert，R.：情景照亮脆弱性和强大的响应，气候变化，117，627-646，2013霍尔顿，P. B.，Edwards，N. R.，Garthwaite，P.H.，Fraedrich，K.，Lunkeit，F.，Kirk，E.，Labriet，M. Kanudia，A.和Babonneau，F.：PLASIM-ENTSem：a spatio-temporal emulator of future climate change for impacts assessment，Geoscience model development discussions，6（2），3349-3380，2013

The expansion of renewable energy, as part of a transition to a sustainable energy economy, has large potential to mitigate the risks associated with anthropogenic climate change. In this context, wind power is an important energy resource. The issue of public and private sector investment in wind power is a collective action problem involving a range of stakeholders, including: wind turbine companies; the National Grid; the Department of Energy and Climate Change; energy infrastructure engineers; and energy investors. However, the wind power resource base is, by its very nature, sensitive to fluctuations in climate (Edenhofer et al. 2011). This sensitivity has implications for how the costs assumed in investment decisions evolve into the future. For instance, there may be a risk of stranded assets should wind patterns change significantly over the lifetime of a wind farm. Therefore, decision-making about the positioning of future wind turbines and investment in associated infrastructure requires information relating to wind potential patterns under different scenarios of climate change, the spatial distribution of the existing transmission network, and the decision-making criteria of key stakeholders. There is also a degree of uncertainty associated with some of this information. While some of the uncertainties in the science can be characterised probabilistically, other sources of uncertainty (such as the global policies needed for a particular climate future to be realised) are not probabilistic by nature and so must be treated in a different way in taking investment and deployment decisions. In this context, a framework of Robust Decision-Making (RDM: Lempert, 2013) can be helpful. Rather than seeking an optimal solution, RDM provides a process for identifying strategies that remain robust across a range of potential future scenarios. The aim of the proposed research is to build a robust decision-making tool to help stakeholders identify wind energy investments and placements of turbines or associated infrastructure that produce satisfactory performance metrics across a wide range of possible climate futures. This decision support tool would harness existing advanced climate modelling approaches and decision-making frameworks, to help stakeholders visualise the vulnerabilities and trade-offs of different positioning strategies in the energy market. Climate information will be supplied by the climate model emulator PLASIM-ENTSem (Holden et al., 2013), a sophisticated, yet computationally very fast, approach to representing the climate.The decision-making tool would be developed, tested and evaluated with involvement from the stakeholders. As such, the tool developed would enable stakeholders to identify positioning strategies that are robust to a range of different climate change scenarios, across different Representative Concentration Pathways. In this way, the project would address the challenges of building resilience and managing climate change risks, within the wind energy sector.Edenhofer, O., Pichs-Madruga, R., Sokona, Y., Seyboth, K., Kadner, S., Zwickel, T., Eickemeier, P., Hansen, G., Schlömer, S., Stechow, C. von and Matschoss, P.: Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation: Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press., 2011.Lempert, R.: Scenarios the illuminate vulnerabilities and robust responses, Climatic Change, 117, 627-646, 2013Holden, P. B., Edwards, N. R., Garthwaite, P. H., Fraedrich, K., Lunkeit, F., Kirk, E., Labriet, M. Kanudia, A. and Babonneau, F.: PLASIM-ENTSem: a spatio-temporal emulator of future climate change for impacts assessment, Geoscientific model development discussions, 6(2), 3349-3380, 2013