Adapting while mitigating: How does climate change impact the energy sector?

Completion of the project CLIM4ENERGY

What are the implications of climate change on the generation of wind energy, hydropower, or bioenergy? How is the offshore oil and gas industry affected? Is there a need for adjusting the way electricity infrastructure is constructed? And how does climate change impact the balance between electricity demand and generation?

The recently finished Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) contract CLIM4ENERGY provides information and data to help answer these questions. CLIM4ENERGY started in January 2016 and finished in March 2018. It is a Proof-of-Concept contract in the Sectoral Information System (SIS) framework of C3S. As such, its goal was to provide essential climate variables and climate change indicators specific for the energy sector. To ensure the relevance and a certain fitness for purpose of the data, it was co-developed in collaboration with partners from the industry, blending climate trends and variability with sector specific information.

As a set of final products, the contract CLIM4ENERGY delivered a considerable amount of data sets, a visualisation tool and a wealth of guidance and background information.

GERICS contributed with its expertise on knowledge production and transfer by developing a Focus Paper and Fact Sheets. These documents summarise the latest scientific findings and highlight the benefits of the indicators produced in CLIM4ENERGY. Both the Focus Paper and the Fact Sheets were created following a well-established methodology developed by GERICS during previous projects. A fundamental part of this methodology is an iterative feedback process, which includes the scientific contract partners on the one hand and representatives of the industry on the other hand, to ensure a meaningful and useful outcome.

Two symposia – after the first half and at the end of the contract – were held to boost the level of interaction and the dialogue between the science community and the energy industry. Firstly, latest scientific work as well as different fields of application of climate data were presented. Secondly, these workshops were crucial for collecting feedback about the industry’s needs, common pitfalls and existing issues regarding the development of climate data and information as well as the application.

Overall, the enthusiasm for the information developed in CLIM4ENERGY was remarkable. According to the industry, this leads to a new challenge: Having access to climate data relevant for the sector is no longer the main problem. Now, a meaningful application of the data to a company’s individual advantage becomes key. Formats that facilitate knowledge production such as the Focus Paper and the Fact Sheets can serve as blueprints to help meet this challenge.