Abstract
A growing literature emphasizes the importance of integrating climate
change impacts into electricity system planning. Rising average
temperatures can increase and shift electricity demand while reducing
generator and transmission efficiency. Changes to water availability and
quality can reduce the output of thermally cooled generators and
hydropower. Electric power grids across the US and globally are
undergoing transformational changes that present new opportunities and
challenges to reliability assurance. However, electric utilities and
system operators have limited internal capabilities to incorporate these
effects into planning practices. This work addresses gaps in utility and
system planner practices by integrating climate-water-electricity
expertise from universities and U.S. Department of Energy National
Laboratories with electricity system planners and stakeholders in the
Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC). Using a highly
collaborative approach, global climate model data, high-resolution
hydrology models, and long-term electric sector capacity expansion tools
are employed to analyze a range of climate outcomes for future
electricity scenarios aligned with recent WECC planning studies. Doing
so allows WECC to expand its climate-agnostic planning assessments to
consider how future temperature and precipitation patterns could
influence generation and transmission planning. We explore how changes
to climate-water conditions can affect power plant investment and
operation, system economics, and environmental impacts, providing an
expanded perspective on interconnection-wide decision making under
climate uncertainty.