Potential impact of climate change on the UK’s electricity network

Potential impacts of climate change on the UK’s electricity network have been assessed:

• Future projections of wind and gale faults indicate that they may remain the same, increase, or decrease in the future, due to uncertainty in wind gust projections;
• Lightning faults are projected to increase in the future as a consequence of a greater number of days projected with stronger convection;
• In the future snow, sleet and blizzard (SSB) faults are projected to decrease due to a reduction of snow days, but when snow does fall the intensity of the event may remain the same or increase;
• The incidence of solar heat faults is projected to increase throughout the UK, due to projected increases in maximum temperatures. However, due to the network’s resilience to high temperatures, these faults are likely to remain relatively rare;
• The occurrence of rainfall amounts that have caused significant flooding events in the past may increase in the future, but a decrease cannot be ruled out. However, this assessment has not explicitly considered important terrestrial processes.

Source: McColl et al. (2012). Climatic Change 115: 821–835.

Photo: Andreas Krappweis (www.sxc.hu)