Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - S2S4E (Sub-seasonal to Seasonal climate forecasting for Energy)

Teaser

Large-scale deployment of renewable energy sources (RES) is key for the clean energy transition and to comply with greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions reduction agreed upon in the Paris Agreement. However, its generation and operational planning are strongly affected by weather...

Summary

Large-scale deployment of renewable energy sources (RES) is key for the clean energy transition and to comply with greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions reduction agreed upon in the Paris Agreement. However, its generation and operational planning are strongly affected by weather and climate, such as low wind-speed or solar radiation seasons, or persistent droughts.

Together with the poor forecasting capacity for power output and demand beyond a few days, this dependence on climate conditions causes wide variations in the RES electricity production and electricity demand. Thus, matching the demand and supply constitutes a major challenge, hampering the integration of renewable energy sources in electricity networks despite being cost-competitive in many settings.

To help solve this problem, S2S4E aims at developing new research methods that explore the frontiers of climate conditions for future weeks and months. This research is contextualised in a new generation of climate services that are closely coproduced with users and markets in a user-centric approach. Hence, a tangible result of the project is the co-development of an operational Decision Support Tool (DST, s2s4e.eu/dst) with the support of key stakeholders in RES for the French, German and Spanish markets. The DST, for the first time, integrates sub-seasonal to seasonal (S2S) climate predictions for renewable energy production and electricity demand.
S2S4E expected outcome is to have an impact on renewable energy integration, business profitability, electricity system management and GHG emissions reduction. The long-term expected impact of the project is to make the European energy sector more resilient to climate variability and extreme events while contributing to a rapid energy transition to address the climate emergency.

Work performed

S2S4E is a three-year project that will finish in November 2020. During the first two years of the project, the eight S2S4E work packages (WP) have produced 25 deliverables, many of them building the knowledge and technical base for the creation of the Decision Support Tool that was launched the 20th of June 2019 as an official side event of the European Sustainable Energy Week (EUSEW).

The scientific challenges have been on building methodologies and tools to analyze climate variability in the past and its impact on the energy sector with a view on its applicability to S2S predictions. Much of this knowledge has been applied in preparing the methodologies and workflows that improve current S2S climate predictions for energy and the integration of these predictions in an operational environment. Efforts have also been focused on defining and producing the technical material to describe and understand case studies to analyse key periods in the past where S2S predictions could have helped energy users to react to extreme events.

Coproduction with energy users is at the core of the project and there has been close interaction with industry partners in the project to co-develop the DST. Besides this, different participatory methods have produced results to i) specify RES sector information needs ii) draw user decision maps that help understanding how climate predictions can fit in their decision making processes, and iii) allow the industry partners to define relevant case studies. Part of this information, together with a review of previous user interactions in climate services projects is available in a public report (D2.1). The first insights about the potential gains of using the DST for improving risk management activities of energy producers are reported in D2.2 and the impact for energy users of having operational real-time forecast will be reported at the end of the project (D2.3).

S2S4E also aims to inform policy makers on how S2S forecasts can support the clean energy transition by enhancing RES share in the energy mix. A comprehensive report analysing energy policies and interventions with an annex database was produced in D6.2. Besides, members of the consortium have been engaging with policy makers in diverse initiatives. All this will culminate in a final event in autumn 2020 that will aim to gather energy and policy makers stakeholders. The visible outcome of this event will be a white report on S2S potential for the energy transition to renewables.


For further details on the work performed during the first 18 months of the project take a look to the Midway status report available in the S2S4E website (https://s2s4e.eu/climate-services/other-resources)

Final results

The research behind S2S4E:

The development of the project is composed by two complementary research lines. The first research line consists of exploring the frontiers of sub-seasonal and seasonal predictions taking into account user needs. A majority of climate prediction studies focus on variables such as temperature. However, S2S4E extends its research to other climate variables, such as wind speed. Taking this variable as example, S2S4E has: 1) assessed which global reanalysis best represents winds comparing them with instrumented tall towers (Ramon et al. 2019); 2) characterized European wind speed variability for the whole year using weather regimes computed month by month, addressing the user\'s need of a service that covers all year, since most studies focus on winter season only. (Cortesi et al. 2019); and 3) investigated the drivers of one of the main wind droughts in the recent years that significantly affected the energy sector (Lledo et al. 2018). The second research line is devoted to transfer this knowledge to the society and ensure the impact and application of the research. Within the context, a game has been developed, where users can play with probabilistic information and assess the usefulness of climate predictions, showing that in skillful areas economic benefits are obtained in the long term (Terrado et al. 2019).

Impact in other sectors:

The scientific advances in S2S4E are useful for the energy sector but also for any other sector where climate-dependent decisions have to be taken at sub-seasonal and seasonal time scales. The project has particularly focused on the replicability on the field of agriculture, food security and drought management related to irrigation since those are fields with users potentially interested in all the developments of S2S4E.

Impact beyond the project lifetime:

S2S4E is expected to enhance the market uptake of climate services for renewable energies by engaging with academia and users and nurturing a community among players from the energy market, policy makers and research organisation. The DST aims to be a long-lived operational tool and, as such, an exploitation and business plan is being developed to assure its sustainability beyond the project lifetime. Besides this, S2S4E D6.2, assessed the consideration of S2S (and more generally of climate services) in European energy policies, both at EU and member state levels and issued recommendations on how to foster the uptake of climate services, including tools such as the DST.

References:

Cortesi, N. et al. (2019) Clim. Dyn., doi:10.1007/s00382-019-04839-5
Lledó, Ll. et al. (2018) J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. doi:10.1029/2017JD028019
Ramon, J. et al. (2019) Q J R Meteorol Soc. doi:10.1002/qj.3616
Soret, A. et al. (2019) J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1222/1/012009
Terrado, M. et al.(2019) BAMS, doi:10.1175/BAMS-D-18-0214.1

Website & more info

More info: https://s2s4e.eu/.