Editing IPCC:AR6/WGII/Chapter-6 (section)

==== 6.3.5.4 Energy ====

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A number of measures are available to adapt existing energy infrastructure to climate change. These typically involve changing engineering design codes and upgrading facilities to cope with new climatic conditions, building redundancy and robustness into systems, and preparation to ensure continued operation following extreme events. Adapting low carbon energy infrastructure improves its climate resilience whilst simultaneously delivering mitigation goals ( [[#Kemp--2017|Kemp, 2017]] ; Feldpausch-Parker et al., 2018), benefitting all other sectors (Dawson et al., 2018; [[#Pescaroli--2018|Pescaroli and Alexander, 2018]] ; Kong, Simonovic and Zhang, 2019).

[[#Hall--2019|Hall et al. (2019)]] identified 4223 GW of global power generation at risk of flooding. If these assets were protected by 0.5 m flood protection, ~700 GW would be at risk from the 1-in-100 year flood. Many assets can be strengthened, relocated or replaced with new equipment built to higher standards. An example of this is in the UK where a total of £172 million is being invested between 2011 and 2023 to raise flood protection of substations to be resilient to the 1-in-1000 year flood ( [[#ENA--2015|ENA, 2015]] ). Electricity cables can be upgraded in anticipation of reduced efficiency in a warmer climate, although in many locations this may be achieved autonomously to meet growth in electricity demand (Fu et al., 2017).

Fuels, including oil, natural gas, hydrogen, biomass and CO 2 prior to sequestration are delivered and distributed by pipeline or transportation by road, rail and shipping. In addition to engineering improvements, adaptation measures also include planning and preparation for service disruption by changing transport patterns, increasing local storage capacities and identifying and prioritising protection of critical transport nodes (Wang et al., 2019b; Panahi, Ng and Pang, 2020).

Several options are available to reduce the impacts of reduced cooling water for thermoelectric power generation, increases in water temperature and lower flows for hydropower generation. These include (i) switching from freshwater to seawater (if available) or air cooling; (ii) replacing once-through cooling systems with recirculation systems; (iii) replacing fuel sources for thermoelectric power generation; (iv) increasing the efficiency of hydro and thermoelectric power plants; (v) relaxing discharge temperature rules to allow warmer water to enter rivers; (vi) installation of screens to stop algae or jellyfish blooms clogging intakes; (vii) reducing power production and managing demand; and (viii) changing reservoir operation rules (where available). Shreshta et al. (2021) show that changing reservoir operation rules can offset reduced water availability under RCP8.5 until 2050, but is insufficient by the 2080s. van Vliet et al., (2016) showed that a 10% increase in hydroelectric generation efficiency can compensate for reduced water availability in most regions. Higher efficiency thermoelectric plans offset impacts under lower climate change scenarios but are shown to be inadequate under RCP8.5 by the 2080s; whereas a switch to seawater and dry (air) cooling provides a net increase under this scenario. However, these technologies can increase costs. Increasing the temperature of water discharged from the power station can have negative environmental impacts (Thome et al., 2016; Yang et al., 2015).

Longer term systemic strategies could include a combination of increased network redundancy and decentralisation of generation locations (Fu et al., 2017), or the use of ‘defensive islanding’ which involves splitting the network into stable islands to isolate components susceptible to failure and subsequently trigger a cascading event (Panteli et al., 2016). Smart grids are being increasingly deployed within municipalities to provide more efficient management of supply and demand and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, however, there is limited understanding of their performance and reliability during floods and other extreme weather events (Vasenev, Montoya and Ceccarelli, 2016; Feldpausch-Parker et al., 2018).

Adaptation and preparedness at the household level can minimise impacts during power outages, but neighbourhood-level assistance may be more appropriate to ensure support for vulnerable households and coordination of action and information (Ghanem, Mander and Gough, 2016). More generally, it is important for responder organisations to integrate energy needs in disaster preparedness and response plans. Whilst over the longer term, reducing household and industrial demand for energy supply will reduce the need for capital investments and upgrades (Fu et al., 2017).

Providing a reliable and resilient power supply is crucial to economic and social development ( [[#Fankhauser--2016|Fankhauser and Stern, 2016]] ). Furthermore, there are co-benefits from the use of low carbon energy systems (Chapter 8, WGIII AR6). For example, solar-charged street lamps and household lighting gives reliable nighttime lighting, providing safety, security and resilience to disruption of network power supplies (Burgess et al., 2017). At larger scales, deploying solar power on building roofs reduces energy demand for cooling by 12% and lowers the urban heat island, and thereby has health benefits (Masson et al., 2014a). In the USA, construction of solar panels over 200 million parking spaces would generate a quarter of the country’s electricity supply ( [[#Erickson--2017|Erickson and Jennings, 2017]] ).

As presented in Table 6.3, access to energy supply varies considerably. In particular, many African countries require substantial energy infrastructure to support their economic development. The combination of smart technologies with solar and other renewable generation provides a huge opportunity (Anderson et al., 2017; [[#Kolokotsa--2017|Kolokotsa, 2017]] ). However, care must be taken in rapidly developing cities, as failure to ensure energy access during urbanisation can reduce resilience (Ürge-Vorsatz et al., 2018).

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