Poster Presentation AMOS Annual Meeting and International Conference on Tropical Meteorology and Oceanography

Assessing the suitability of daily maximum temperature projections to inform forecasts of maximum energy demand (#2040)

Zak Baillie 1 , Sophie Lewis 1
  1. School of Physical Environmental and Mathematical Sciences, University of New South Wales, Canberra, ACT, Australia

The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) recently released its annual assessment of electricity security for the coming 10 years (see Australian Energy Market Operator, 2018). The 2018 report showed that not only were AEMO increasingly concerned about climate change, but that current projections of extreme heat had caused them to increase their anticipated maximum energy demand over the 10-year outlook. This is the first time AEMO have done so. Motivated by this concern, this research addresses the question: do current projections of Australia’s climate future provide the required information for AEMO to adequately plan for extreme heat?

To address this question, we use downscaled projections that have already been produced for Australia (NARCliM (Evans et al., 2014) and Climate Change in Australia (CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology, 2015)) to examine regional climate change impacts. As these projections are compositionally different, we first assess their suitability to inform projections of maximum energy demand. We next identify the optimal downscaling characteristics (i.e. downscaling method, most suitable global/regional climate models, temporal/spatial resolution) for informing projections of maximum energy demand, helping to clarify whether dedicated climate projections need to be produced for this purpose. 

  1. Australian Energy Market Operator 2018, 2018 Electricity Statement of Opportunities: A report for the National Electricity Market. Australian Energy Market Operator, Australia.
  2. CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology 2015, Climate Change in Australia Information for Australia’s Natural Resource Management Regions: Technical Report, CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology, Australia
  3. Evans, J. P., Ji, F., Lee, C., Smith, P., Argüeso, D. and Fita, L. 2014. Design of a regional climate modelling projection ensemble experiment - NARCliM. Geosci. Model Dev., 7, 621-629.