Assessment of Climate Change Event Likelihood Embedded in Risk Assessment Targeting Electricity Distribution (ACCELERATED)
| Funding mechanism | Network Innovation Allowance (NIA) |
|---|---|
| Duration | Jan 2022 - Mar 2023 |
| Project expenditure | £245k |
| Research area | Optimised assets and practices |
Objective(s)
- To provide a visual representation of National Grid historic weather impacts and climate change projections within different timeframes and spatial resolutions;
- To establish an up-to-date understanding of the potential impacts of projected climate change on National Grid’s assets performance and functionality;
- To establish an understanding of climate change impacts on embedded generation and consumption patterns;
- To develop a climate change impact assessment procedure and to trial it across the business.
Problem(s)
The latest ‘Progress in Adapting to Climate Change’ report (2021) clearly states that national overall progress in planning and delivering adaptation in not keeping up with increasing risk from climate change. Essentially, UK is less prepared for the changing climate now than it was when the previous risk assessment was published five years ago. As a result Committee on Climate Change (CCC) strongly recommend energy industry to make monitoring and data analysis of climate risks more accessible, alongside better digitisation of past records. Specifically, the report states that ‘a major gap is lack of projections of impacts in 2֯C and 4֯C [temperature increase] scenarios; this needs addressing as an urgent priority’. Moreover, recent experience in dealing with extreme weather events revealed the need to improve information sharing on climate risks to infrastructure interdependencies at a local level, especially for electricity network.
DNOs are not currently required to have a dedicated climate change management procedures to govern risks associated with projected increase in frequency and severity of extreme weather events and therefore, operational functionality of certain types of assets may be compromised if appropriate level of resilience is not considered at the planning stage prior to installation or replacement of old infrastructure.
Method(s)
The project will be delivered through four interlinked work packages as follows:
Work Package 1: Identification of historic severe weather impacts and at-risk asset groups.
WP1 will establish the impact severe weather events have had on National Grid Electricity Distribution network to date across all four licence areas; this will allow us to establish common fault causes associated with the observed trends. The faults will be analysed with the maximum weather intensities that occurred in the storm that caused them. Trend analysis will be performed to understand how severe weather impacts change over time and will map out at-risk locations and asset groups for each of the weather impacts.
Work Package 2: Projecting future impacts of severe weather and climate change.
UKCP18 projections and other relevant sources of information will be acquired to indicate how the impact of observed weather trends will change short-, medium- and long-term under various carbon emissions scenarios. The data will be correlated with the asset failure records discovered as part of WP1 with additional failure modelling performed as appropriate.
Work Package 3: Projecting climate change impacts on embedded generation and consumption patterns.
WP3 will be looking to develop a suitable methodology to factor in climate projections and specific weather variables into forecasting modelling to generate future demand and generation profiles for a range of timeframes.
Work Package 4: Climate Change Impact Assessment Procedure
Based on the findings of the analysis completed in work packages 1-3, climate change impact assessment procedure will be prepared for consideration to be adopted as part of National Grid business procedures. The document will identify business units that require adoption of the document and will be supported by visualisation tool and other technical assessments prepared as part of work package 1-3.
Scope
We recognise that current and future climate change can directly affect National Grid's business objective of providing a safe, reliable and efficient electricity supply to our customers. To be prepared for the projected change in chronic and acute weather conditions in short-, medium- and long-term we as a business need to be equipped with novel reliable climate change data so that our distribution network is equipped with innovative toolset for effective operation and management. Climate change data provision will allow for informed investments decisions and identification of at-risk hotspots so that design, reinforcement and maintenance activities are performed with climate change future proofing in mind. Customers across all four licence areas will be ultimate beneficiaries through reduced interruption to the service and reduced maintenance/recovery cost. Furthermore, by providing climate change data at a glance we will ensure streamlined information sharing with all relevant stakeholders.
Success Criteria
- All required historic and climate change data acquired and analysed;
- A visualisation tool structure and specification is developed and the tool is ready for integration into National Grid internal GIS model;
- Climate impacts on asset groups established and documented;
- Impacts on embedded generation and future demand modelled and documented;
- Climate change impact assessment procedure developed and verified within the business.
Potential for New Learning
The output of this work will provide a methodology and structured approach to climate change impact assessment which will be applicable in a DNO context. Technical assessment of the performance and functionality of distribution assets in the lights of climate change (for relevant weather variables) will be undertaken and referenced during an impact assessment process. Visualisation of past extreme weather events impact on National Grid network and climate change projections (UKCP18) will be developed and will act as a reference during the impact assessment process.
Feasibility of integration of climate change projections into existing distribution future energy scenario modelling will be tested and verified.