The report provides a literature review to identify how climate can impact key end-use assets and distributed energy resources (DER). For both current and changing climate conditions, the report identifies climate variables that can impact customer-sited assets in order to help the reader anticipate climate-related impacts. For DER this report focused on climate impacts to small-scale solar and batteries, while the end-use sections focused on specific end-use categories whose failures or inefficiencies related to climate may impact the grid and/or power company operations. These include electric vehicles (EVs) and their associated charging infrastructure, data centers, and space conditioning systems such as air-source heat pumps.
DER and end-use technologies can all be impacted by extreme weather events and other weather trends that occur due to climate change, particularly extreme temperatures. For example, Lithium Ion (Li-Ion) battery energy storage (associated with DER and EVs) is known to have performance issues in both cold and hot temperatures. Rooftop solar panels are often subject to the same climate vulnerabilities as large-scale solar installations, such as loss of efficiency from extreme temperatures and lowered irradiance (e.g., cloud cover, snowfall, icing, etc.) as well as damage from flooding. Heat pumps for space conditioning also can be impacted by extreme climate conditions, through efficiency loss under extreme temperatures as well as disruption or damage to outdoor compressor units from high humidity or snowfall levels. Flooding, freezing, and extreme hot temperatures have impacted data center operation through cooling efficiency loss as well as data center disruption due to damage caused by frozen pipes bursting and flooding associated with cooling system equipment after a freeze event. Moreover, extreme temperatures and climate conditions can impact EV fleet charging, causing higher power draw than during normal temperature conditions as well as shifts in patterns (e.g., timing and location) of charging. For example, spikes in EV charging can occur as drivers fully charge vehicles in preparation for forecasted weather events (e.g., hurricane or flood) and/or to prepare for evacuation.
This report is intended to inform decision-makers about climate change risks and assessment strategies. It is also intended to provide a foundation for the next phase of Climate Resilience and Adaptation Initiative (READi) research to advance the development of a framework for climate change vulnerability and adaptation assessment.