Decadal climate forecasting for the energy-sector

在世界各地，电力系统正在经历巨大的变化，以应对气候变化的挑战。风能和太阳能光伏等可再生能源在电力系统中发挥着越来越大的作用，从根本上改变了电力系统的运行方式。在英国，风力发电装置水平的增加意味着风速的变化现在与温度的变化一样重要，以维持安全的（即，电力需求和电力供应之间的连续和近瞬时）匹配，因此，预测低风冷骤已成为供应安全的关键问题（布卢姆菲尔德等人2018;桑顿等人2017）。世界上许多国家都面临着将可再生能源融入现有电力系统的类似挑战，这提出了一个重要问题：气候变异性和气候变化将如何影响未来几年和几十年的电力系统行为？近年来，学术界和工业界对气候变化和变化对电力系统运行和规划带来的风险越来越感兴趣。然而，大部分研究都是基于气候不变的假设（即，使用历史观测）或非常长期的气候模式预测（涉及2050年或以后）。因此，有一个显着的“十年尺度的信息差距”（1-10年）之间的这些极端的电力系统规划是显着的。例如，高质量的十年级气候信息可以支持为低风年等压力时期提供预警系统，或支持确定在若干年内整合新基础设施的最佳“途径”。然而，十年尺度的气候预测在科学上具有挑战性，因为它试图对近期的未来气候做出具体的预测（即，关于基于某些初始起始状态将发生什么的陈述）与气候模型更常见的长期预测相反（即，可能的结果取决于特定温室气体情景的发生）。直到最近，人们还普遍认为，十年期预测的技能相当有限，但最近的发展表明，未来几年的技能令人惊讶（Smith等人，2020）。这个博士将建立在这些最新的发展，探索在何种程度上熟练的十年气候预测可以用来通知能源系统的操作和管理，从一个赛季到未来几年。因此，该项目将寻求率先将十年期预测用于能源系统应用。这项工作的一个中心重点将是确定和了解十年期预报技能，并确定和开发可加以利用的应用程序。

Throughout the world, power systems are undergoing massive change in response to the challenge of climate change. Renewable electricity sources - such as wind and solar PV - are playing an increasing role in power systems, fundamentally altering the way power systems operate. In Great Britain, increasing levels of wind power installation now mean that shifts in wind speed are now as important as shifts in temperature in maintaining a secure (i.e., continuous and near-instantaneous) match between electricity-demand and electricity-supply and, as a result, anticipating low-wind-cold-snaps has become a key issue for supply security (Bloomfield et al 2018; Thornton et al 2017). Similar challenges around the integration of renewables into existing power systems are being faced by many countries across the world, raising an important question: how will climate variability and climate change affect the behaviour of power systems in the coming years and decades?Recent years have seen increased interest from both academia and industry into the risks posed by climate variability and change for power system operations and planning. Much of this research, however, has been based either on an assumption of an unchanging climate (i.e., using historical observations) or else very-long-term climate model projections (relating to 2050 or beyond). There is therefore a significant "decadal-scale information gap" (1-10 years) between these extremes which is significant for power system planning. High quality decadal-scale climate information could, for example, support the provision of early warning systems for stress periods such as low-wind years, or support the identification of optimal "pathways" for integrating new infrastructure over the course of several years. Decadal-scale climate forecasting is, however, scientifically challenging in that it seeks to make a concrete prediction of near-term future climate (i.e., statements about what will happen based on some initial starting state) as opposed to the long term projections more commonly with climate models (i.e., possible outcomes contingent on the occurrence of a particular greenhouse gas scenario). Until recently, it has been widely believed that the skill of decadal forecasting was rather limited, but recent developments have indicated surprising skill several years ahead (Smith et al, 2020). This PhD will build on these recent developments to explore the extent to which skilful decadal climate predictions can be used to inform the operation and management of the energy system from a season to several years ahead. This project will therefore seek to pioneer the use of decadal forecasting for energy system applications. A central focus of the work will be to characterize and understand decadal forecast skill and to identify and develop applications through which it can be utilized.