Flexible Fund 2: Resilience (2)

CLEARHEADS: CLimate-Energy modelling for Assessing Resilience –HEAt Decarbonisation and the Northwest European Supergrid

Pronciple Investigator: David Brayshaw, Meteorology Department, University of Reading

Project Summary: Climate change is a major challenge for energy system resilience. On the one hand, heat decarbonisation moves weather-driven demand from gas to electrical networks; on the other, increasing penetration of renewables adds weather-sensitivity to electricity supply. These challenges are further exacerbated by a changing climate. Transnational transmission systems offer a solution by connecting energy resources and loads across countries, but this additional resilience cannot be easily quantified by existing methods. Using an innovative combination of two data-driven methodologies, this project will quantify the resilience of interconnected systems by combining expertise in climate science with probabilistic models of energy demand (including electrification of heat), generation, and transnational energy flows. It will also leave a legacy of improved access to a suite of state-of-the-art high-resolution future climate simulations for use in wider energy-systems modelling applications.