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Weather and Climate and the Power Sector: Needs, Recent Developments and Challenges

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Weather Matters for Energy

Abstract

Weather and climate information is essential to the energy sector. The power sector in particular has been using both observations and forecasts of many meteorological and hydrological parameters for several decades. In the last 10 years, a clear upward trend has been observed in the number, complexity, and value of data provided by National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) or produced by the energy sector itself. Much progress has been made, especially in the medium-term and longer time ranges; the development of reliable probabilistic forecasting systems has allowed many improvements in demand and production forecasts, although there is still a lot to do because of the difficulty in integrating probabilistic weather forecasts in management tools. In addition, the rise of renewable energy (RE) production systems, in particular wind and solar energy, has emphasized new needs for more accurate and reliable short-term forecasts, from real-time to a few days ahead. Rapid fluctuations in wind and solar radiation at local scale certainly raise a serious problem for the management of power grids. Significant and swift improvements in local forecasts, at hourly or even sub-hourly time step, become increasingly important and will be among the drivers for the large-scale development of RE systems. In this paper, we present some important results concerning monthly ensemble forecasts of temperature and river streamflows in France. We then point to the principal needs in weather forecasting associated with the development of RE. We also discuss the importance of collaboration and relationships between providers and users of weather, water, and climate information.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization.

  2. 2.

    The power of a production unit is expressed in megawatts (MW). A nuclear plant has a production capacity of 900–1,600 MW, depending on the technology; the production capacity of a typical windmill is around 1–5 MW.

  3. 3.

    1 TWh (Terawatt. hours) = 1012 W-h, is a measure of energy, the product of power capacity and the time during which it runs (maximum 8,760 h per year).

  4. 4.

    This 15,000-scenario dataset was established to deal with probability distribution tails (e.g., 1 % quantile), which cannot be estimated accurately with only 120 years of data.

  5. 5.

    See also the web site maintained by Beth Ebert at http://www.cawcr.gov.au/projects/verification.

  6. 6.

    “European Provision of Regional Impact Assessment on a Seasonal-to-decadal timescale”, www.euporias.eu.

  7. 7.

    Wind power, for instance, varies with the cube of wind speed.

  8. 8.

    For example, a D + 1 forecast at Réunion should be available for the grid operator no later than 16:00 local time on day D, and provide information up to D + 1 at 20:00 local time, in order to be useful. This means that the forecast should be issued at 10:00 UTC up to H + 30, considering a running delivery time of 2 h and the 4-h time lag at Réunion. At the moment, forecasts from Météo-France are issued at 00:00 UTC and 12:00 UTC, for H to H + 30 with the AROME model. In the first case, the forecast does not completely cover D + 1; in the second case, the D + 1 forecast is complete, but arrives too late to be taken into consideration in the planning of the operators.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. R&D/Atmospheric Environment and Applied Meteorology, 6 Quai Watier, 78400, Chatou, France

    Laurent Dubus

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  1. Laurent Dubus
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Correspondence to Laurent Dubus .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Pye Laboratory, CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Canberra, Aust Capital Terr, Australia

    Alberto Troccoli

  2. EDF - R&D, Chatou, France

    Laurent Dubus

  3. Research Applications Laboratory, Haupt Associates, Boulder, Colorado, USA

    Sue Ellen Haupt

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Dubus, L. (2014). Weather and Climate and the Power Sector: Needs, Recent Developments and Challenges. In: Troccoli, A., Dubus, L., Haupt, S. (eds) Weather Matters for Energy. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9221-4_18

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