IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/renene/v208y2023icp726-736.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Impact of climate changes on the stability of solar energy: Evidence from observations and reanalysis

Author

Listed:
  • Jiang, Hou
  • Lu, Ning
  • Yao, Ling
  • Qin, Jun
  • Liu, Tang

Abstract

Climate change alters the amount and spatiotemporal characteristics of solar radiation at the surface. How this affects the stability of solar energy has not yet been explored on a global scale. In this study, we combine ground observations and ERA5 reanalysis to calculate indicators of resource stability and solar intermittency to find evidence of changes in global solar energy stability over the past 20 years. The calculated results of ERA5 are highly consistent with those based on observations, allowing spatially continuous analysis using ERA5 estimates. We find that solar resource availability is on the rise in most regions, with a maximum decadal increase of up to 30 W/m2 and a rate of about 1–2 W/m2/year. The regions of significant downward trend are concentrated in the Northern Hemisphere. In addition, approximately 85% of the world's land is at risk of increasing intermittency, particularly in India, Central and Northern Africa, China, and the United States, which means that adaptation measures to mitigate intermittency should be coordinated in the context of climate change. This study contributes to understanding the climate impacts on solar energy stability and has practical value for future planning and development of solar energy.

Suggested Citation

  • Jiang, Hou & Lu, Ning & Yao, Ling & Qin, Jun & Liu, Tang, 2023. "Impact of climate changes on the stability of solar energy: Evidence from observations and reanalysis," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 208(C), pages 726-736.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:208:y:2023:i:c:p:726-736
    DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2023.03.114
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148123004172
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.renene.2023.03.114?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Voyant, Cyril & Notton, Gilles & Kalogirou, Soteris & Nivet, Marie-Laure & Paoli, Christophe & Motte, Fabrice & Fouilloy, Alexis, 2017. "Machine learning methods for solar radiation forecasting: A review," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 569-582.
    2. Qin, Jun & Jiang, Hou & Lu, Ning & Yao, Ling & Zhou, Chenghu, 2022. "Enhancing solar PV output forecast by integrating ground and satellite observations with deep learning," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    3. L. Kruitwagen & K. T. Story & J. Friedrich & L. Byers & S. Skillman & C. Hepburn, 2021. "A global inventory of photovoltaic solar energy generating units," Nature, Nature, vol. 598(7882), pages 604-610, October.
    4. Siddharth Joshi & Shivika Mittal & Paul Holloway & Priyadarshi Ramprasad Shukla & Brian Ó Gallachóir & James Glynn, 2021. "High resolution global spatiotemporal assessment of rooftop solar photovoltaics potential for renewable electricity generation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-15, December.
    5. Jiang, Hou & Lu, Ning & Qin, Jun & Tang, Wenjun & Yao, Ling, 2019. "A deep learning algorithm to estimate hourly global solar radiation from geostationary satellite data," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 1-1.
    6. Jun Yin & Annalisa Molini & Amilcare Porporato, 2020. "Impacts of solar intermittency on future photovoltaic reliability," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 11(1), pages 1-9, December.
    7. Ravestein, P. & van der Schrier, G. & Haarsma, R. & Scheele, R. & van den Broek, M., 2018. "Vulnerability of European intermittent renewable energy supply to climate change and climate variability," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 497-508.
    8. Sarah Feron & Raúl R. Cordero & Alessandro Damiani & Robert B. Jackson, 2021. "Climate change extremes and photovoltaic power output," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 4(3), pages 270-276, March.
    9. Gunnar Luderer & Zoi Vrontisi & Christoph Bertram & Oreane Y. Edelenbosch & Robert C. Pietzcker & Joeri Rogelj & Harmen Sytze Boer & Laurent Drouet & Johannes Emmerling & Oliver Fricko & Shinichiro Fu, 2018. "Residual fossil CO2 emissions in 1.5–2 °C pathways," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 8(7), pages 626-633, July.
    10. Lai, Chun Sing & Jia, Youwei & Lai, Loi Lei & Xu, Zhao & McCulloch, Malcolm D. & Wong, Kit Po, 2017. "A comprehensive review on large-scale photovoltaic system with applications of electrical energy storage," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 439-451.
    11. Li, Jidong & Chen, Shijun & Wu, Yuqiang & Wang, Qinhui & Liu, Xing & Qi, Lijian & Lu, Xiuyuan & Gao, Lu, 2021. "How to make better use of intermittent and variable energy? A review of wind and photovoltaic power consumption in China," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    12. Rowlands, Ian H. & Kemery, Briana Paige & Beausoleil-Morrison, Ian, 2014. "Managing solar-PV variability with geographical dispersion: An Ontario (Canada) case-study," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 171-180.
    13. Sánchez de la Nieta, Agustín A. & Paterakis, Nikolaos G. & Gibescu, Madeleine, 2020. "Participation of photovoltaic power producers in short-term electricity markets based on rescheduling and risk-hedging mapping," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 266(C).
    14. Tripathy, Sujit Kumar & Mitra, Indradip & Heinemann, Detlev & Giridhar, Godugunur & Gomathinayagam, S., 2017. "Impact assessment of short-term variability of solar radiation in Rajasthan using SRRA data," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 798-806.
    15. Narvaez, Gabriel & Giraldo, Luis Felipe & Bressan, Michael & Pantoja, Andres, 2021. "Machine learning for site-adaptation and solar radiation forecasting," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 333-342.
    16. Zhang, Jianyuan & Zhao, Li & Deng, Shuai & Xu, Weicong & Zhang, Ying, 2017. "A critical review of the models used to estimate solar radiation," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 314-329.
    17. Bódis, Katalin & Kougias, Ioannis & Jäger-Waldau, Arnulf & Taylor, Nigel & Szabó, Sándor, 2019. "A high-resolution geospatial assessment of the rooftop solar photovoltaic potential in the European Union," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 1-1.
    18. Joel R. Norris & Robert J. Allen & Amato T. Evan & Mark D. Zelinka & Christopher W. O’Dell & Stephen A. Klein, 2016. "Evidence for climate change in the satellite cloud record," Nature, Nature, vol. 536(7614), pages 72-75, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jingbing Sun & Youmu Xie & Sheng Zhou & Jiali Dan, 2024. "RETRACTED ARTICLE: The role of solar energy in achieving net-zero emission and green growth: a global analysis," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 57(2), pages 1-16, April.
    2. Guo, Jingxian & Li, Runkui & Cai, Panli & Xiao, Zhen & Fu, Haiyu & Guo, Tongze & Wang, Tianyi & Zhang, Xiaoping & Wang, Jiancheng & Song, Xianfeng, 2024. "Risk in solar energy: Spatio-temporal instability and extreme low-light events in China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 359(C).
    3. Zuo, Jingping & Qian, Cuncun & Su, Bing & Ji, Hao & Xu, Yang & Peng, Zhipeng, 2024. "Evaluation of future renewable energy drought risk in China based on CMIP6," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 225(C).
    4. Margarete Afonso de Sousa Guilhon Araujo & Soraida Aguilar & Reinaldo Castro Souza & Fernando Luiz Cyrino Oliveira, 2024. "Global Horizontal Irradiance in Brazil: A Comparative Study of Reanalysis Datasets with Ground-Based Data," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(20), pages 1-25, October.
    5. Bai, Yang & Zhu, Qianming & Huang, Diangui, 2024. "Numerical simulation of wave-number effects on the performance of traveling wave pump-turbine in turbine mode," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 229(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jiang, Hou & Yao, Ling & Lu, Ning & Qin, Jun & Zhang, Xiaotong & Liu, Tang & Zhang, Xingxing & Zhou, Chenghu, 2024. "Exploring the optimization of rooftop photovoltaic scale and spatial layout under curtailment constraints," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 293(C).
    2. Jiang, Hou & Zhang, Xiaotong & Yao, Ling & Lu, Ning & Qin, Jun & Liu, Tang & Zhou, Chenghu, 2023. "High-resolution analysis of rooftop photovoltaic potential based on hourly generation simulations and load profiles," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 348(C).
    3. Qin, Jun & Jiang, Hou & Lu, Ning & Yao, Ling & Zhou, Chenghu, 2022. "Enhancing solar PV output forecast by integrating ground and satellite observations with deep learning," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    4. Chu, Yinghao & Wang, Yiling & Yang, Dazhi & Chen, Shanlin & Li, Mengying, 2024. "A review of distributed solar forecasting with remote sensing and deep learning," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    5. Mao, Hongzhi & Chen, Xie & Luo, Yongqiang & Deng, Jie & Tian, Zhiyong & Yu, Jinghua & Xiao, Yimin & Fan, Jianhua, 2023. "Advances and prospects on estimating solar photovoltaic installation capacity and potential based on satellite and aerial images," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    6. Jiang, Hou & Lu, Ning & Huang, Guanghui & Yao, Ling & Qin, Jun & Liu, Hengzi, 2020. "Spatial scale effects on retrieval accuracy of surface solar radiation using satellite data," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 270(C).
    7. Ding, Feng & Yang, Jianping & Zhou, Zan, 2023. "Economic profits and carbon reduction potential of photovoltaic power generation for China's high-speed railway infrastructure," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    8. Jha, Sunil Kr. & Bilalovic, Jasmin & Jha, Anju & Patel, Nilesh & Zhang, Han, 2017. "Renewable energy: Present research and future scope of Artificial Intelligence," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 297-317.
    9. Ghanim, Marrwa S. & Farhan, Ammar A., 2023. "Projected patterns of climate change impact on photovoltaic energy potential: A case study of Iraq," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 204(C), pages 338-346.
    10. Liu, Junling & Li, Mengyue & Xue, Liya & Kobashi, Takuro, 2022. "A framework to evaluate the energy-environment-economic impacts of developing rooftop photovoltaics integrated with electric vehicles at city level," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 647-657.
    11. Narvaez, Gabriel & Giraldo, Luis Felipe & Bressan, Michael & Pantoja, Andres, 2021. "Machine learning for site-adaptation and solar radiation forecasting," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 333-342.
    12. Hou Jiang & Ning Lu & Xuecheng Wang, 2023. "Assessing Carbon Reduction Potential of Rooftop PV in China through Remote Sensing Data-Driven Simulations," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-16, February.
    13. Caldas, M. & Alonso-Suárez, R., 2019. "Very short-term solar irradiance forecast using all-sky imaging and real-time irradiance measurements," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 1643-1658.
    14. Hu, Wei & Bradbury, Kyle & Malof, Jordan M. & Li, Boning & Huang, Bohao & Streltsov, Artem & Sydny Fujita, K. & Hoen, Ben, 2022. "What you get is not always what you see—pitfalls in solar array assessment using overhead imagery," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 327(C).
    15. du Plessis, A.A. & Strauss, J.M. & Rix, A.J., 2021. "Short-term solar power forecasting: Investigating the ability of deep learning models to capture low-level utility-scale Photovoltaic system behaviour," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 285(C).
    16. Jiang, Hou & Lu, Ning & Qin, Jun & Yao, Ling, 2021. "Hierarchical identification of solar radiation zones in China," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    17. Mohammad Mahdi Forootan & Iman Larki & Rahim Zahedi & Abolfazl Ahmadi, 2022. "Machine Learning and Deep Learning in Energy Systems: A Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-49, April.
    18. Gao, Datong & Zhao, Bin & Kwan, Trevor Hocksun & Hao, Yong & Pei, Gang, 2022. "The spatial and temporal mismatch phenomenon in solar space heating applications: status and solutions," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 321(C).
    19. Stephan Schlüter & Fabian Menz & Milena Kojić & Petar Mitić & Aida Hanić, 2022. "A Novel Approach to Generate Hourly Photovoltaic Power Scenarios," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-16, April.
    20. Zhixin Zhang & Min Chen & Teng Zhong & Rui Zhu & Zhen Qian & Fan Zhang & Yue Yang & Kai Zhang & Paolo Santi & Kaicun Wang & Yingxia Pu & Lixin Tian & Guonian Lü & Jinyue Yan, 2023. "Carbon mitigation potential afforded by rooftop photovoltaic in China," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-12, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:208:y:2023:i:c:p:726-736. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/renewable-energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.