RESNET
Resilient Electricity Networks for Great Britain
AIM
To develop and demonstrate a comprehensive approach to
analyse, at a national scale, climate-related changes in the
reliability of the UK’s electricity system, and to develop tools
for quantifying the value of adaptations that would enhance its
resilience.
PrincipaI Investigator
Prof K Anderson, University of Manchester
Research partners
Newcastle University
Stakeholder partners
National Grid, Environment Agency, Ove Arup
Project duration
September 2011–August 2015
The resilience of GB’s electricity energy network is being challenged on three fronts:
(i) policies aimed at reducing GHG emissions through decarbonising energy supply
will alter the existing supply mix; (ii) decarbonising of the energy system will involve
considerable shift of previously non-electric energy demand onto the electricity
network with accompanying changes in how much electricity is needed and when
it is needed; and (iii) the expected mean changes in climate will alter the electricity
demand and performance of electricity infrastructure, and increased severity and
frequency of extreme weather events will impact on the electrical network and
distribution systems.
To address these multiple challenges, the RESNET project will develop and demonstrate
a comprehensive systems-level approach to analysing the resilience of the existing and proposed
electricity networks. It will develop, test and refine tools for evaluating adaptation measures designed
to enhance the resilience of the network, including societal and technical adaptation.
Objectives
• To develop a weather generator for producing scenarios of spatially coincident weather
extremes in future climates at a national scale.
• To apply a weather typing approach to the regional climate models used by UKCP09 to
produce a wind storm component for the weather generator.
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ARCoES project summary
• To generate spatially and temporally explicit scenarios of future electricity demand and
supply with and without different scales of decentralisation.
• To develop models relating changes in the severity of weather related events to failure rate
of individual network components.
• To quantify the potential impacts of future climate upon the operational resilience and the
infrastructure resilience of the overall GB power system
• To explore the societal implications and identify potential barriers to adaptation measures.
Programme
The work will consist of 5 work packages (WPs).
1. Spatial scenarios of future climate. WP1 will produce future climate scenarios for
three key weather variables where changes in average characteristics can impact on
the operational resilience of the network and changes in extremes can impact the
infrastructural resilience of the network: temperature, rainfall and wind.
Deliverable: National scale spatially correlated weather generator: a new UKCP09
consistent wind storm model with outputs returned to UKCP09 users
2. Electricity demand and supply scenarios. WP2 will develop electricity demand and
supply scenarios, consistent both with the climate change impacts scenarios from WP1
and levels of decarbonisation required to meet policy targets.
Deliverables: A methodology paper on spatially explicit downscaling methods for energy
demand and supply and a range of transmission network and demand scenarios for 2020s,
2050s and 2080s, co-developed with stakeholders
3. Network performance analysis. WP3 will couple the hazard model from WP1 with demand
and supply scenarios from WP2 with a dynamic, spatially explicit, power systems
simulation model.
Deliverables: Coupled hazard-dynamic energy system model with components
parameterized for climate related performance and a library of performance functions for
present and future climate and technologies
4. Quantified analysis of resilience and the effectiveness of adaptation. WP4 will use the
model to quantify the potential impacts of future climate upon the day to day resilience
and resilience to extreme events of the overall GB electricity transmission system
and case study distribution networks, and to test the effectiveness of a wide range of
adaptation options for improving the overall resilience of the energy system.
Deliverable: Methods for (a) analysing operational and infrastructure resilience, (b)
evaluating the effectiveness of adaptation options and (c) optimising network design
5. Social responses to adaptation measures. WP5 will assess the impact of the future
vulnerability of the network upon organisations and households, taking into account
climate change impacts, and consider how these may adapt.
Deliverable: Scoping report on current organisational strategies for coping with lose of
electrical power, focussing on vulnerable sectors; assessment of potential for organisational
adaptation to different network vulnerability scenario;, scoping of strategies for coping
with loss of electrical power in the home; an assessment of the potential for behavioural
adaptation to network vulnerability to climate change.
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