Climate change impacts on renewable energy generation. A review of quantitative projections

Climate change can strongly affect renewable energy production. The state of the art in projecting future renewable energy generation has focused on using regional climate prediction. However, regional climate prediction is characterized by inherent uncertainty due to the complexity of climate models. This work provides a comprehensive study to quantify the impact of climate uncertainties in projecting future renewable energy potential over five climate zones of Europe. Thirteen future climate scenarios, including five global climate models (GCMs) and three representative concentration pathways (RCPs), are downscaled by the RCA4 regional climate model (RCM) over 90 years (2010–2099), divided into three 30-year periods. Solar and wind energy production is projected considering short-/long-term climate variations and uncertainties in seven representative cities (Narvik, Gothenburg, Munich, Antwerp, Salzburg, Valencia, and Athens). The results showed that the uncertainty caused by GCMs has the most substantial impact on projecting renewable energy generation. The variations due to GCM selection can become even larger than long-term climate change variations over time. Climate change uncertainties lead to over 23% and 45% projection differences for solar PV and wind energy potential, respectively. While the signal of climate change in solar radiation is weak between scenarios and over time, wind energy generation is affected by 25%.

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Renewable Energy Generation in the Energy Balance: the Forecast until 2035

Mechanism of an economic regulation ◽

10.21272/mer.2021.92.03 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 2021 (2) ◽

pp. 23-32

Author(s):

Tetyana V. Pimonenko ◽

Oleksii V. Lyulyov ◽

Yana O. Us ◽

Aleksy S. Kwilinski ◽

Anastasiya P. Nazarenko ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Energy Efficiency ◽

Renewable Energy ◽

Energy Policy ◽

Bibliometric Analysis ◽

Energy Generation ◽

Primary Energy ◽

Energy Conditions ◽

Renewable Sources ◽

Renewable Energy Generation

This paper summarizes the arguments and counterarguments within the scientific discussion on developing national economic energy efficiency under optimizing renewable energy generations. This study aims to forecast renewable energy generation until 2035 under the current Ukrainian conditions. The relevance of this scientific issue is the urgency to combat the climate change consequences under economic development. A bibliometric analysis was conducted in the study frameworks to systemize the scientific treatises and indicate main research directions in energy investigation. The source of publications was the Scopus database. The VOSviewer software tools were applied to visualize the obtained results. In turn, to gain the research goal, the authors forecasted the primary energy generations from renewable sources using Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model. The study sample was the shares of primary energy from renewable sources in Ukraine. The data covers 1985-2019. The results of bibliometric analysis allowed identifying main directions in investigating the energy policy such as renewable energy development under climate change; bioenergy; reducing carbon emissions towards economic growth; energy security and policy; management in the energy sector; satisfaction of the energy demand and improving the energy conditions for consumers. In the empirical part of this study, the forecast findings showed the growing tendency in primary energy generation from renewable sources. However, the share of primary energy from renewable sources would increase by 1.16 times (3,62 %). Therefore, the authors concluded that the target of the Energy Strategy of Ukraine of 25 % the share of primary energy from renewable sources would not be gained until 2035. This study highlights the necessity to develop renewable energy in Ukraine. The obtained results could be the base for further investigations devoted to elaborating the energy policy towards developing energy efficiency and green development.

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