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

光伏（PV）系统可能会产生局部空气温度变暖效应，这可能会影响其效率，并可能进一步加剧局部环境的变暖。光伏、土地和大气之间的相互作用因气候变化而进一步复杂化。因此，广泛部署光伏作为可靠的可再生能源的潜力必须在一个建模框架中进行评估，该框架可以准确地描述未来区域尺度的气候条件，忠实地代表相关的光伏-陆地-大气相互作用，并评估电力生产。该项目的目标是准确和可靠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离线广泛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）相结合。通过基于气候的WRF-SolarPV应用，考虑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“甜蜜点”的地图，突出显示具有高水平持续太阳辐照度的位置，这些位置与未来气候下适当低的光伏组件温度保持一致。具体而言，该研究将探讨未来气候如何影响美国西南部的太阳能资源，以及可以预测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，这项研究将解决与减少温室气体排放和环境可持续性有关的主要问题。要开发的框架将通过检查当前和未来的光伏-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，实现能源系统数值模拟的进步。该研究团队将开发开源的科学工具WRF-SolarPV，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多名用户支持，维护和传播WRF系统。开发和提供这样一个工具，预计将是相当大的价值，利益相关者考虑过渡到光伏作为一种可再生能源，但缺乏这样做的评估工具。该项目还将通过与当地公立特许学校的教育合作，促进高中生的参与和指导，这些学校过去曾与研究团队一起参加过暑期实习项目。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。

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.