IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/climat/v121y2013i1p93-102.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Vulnerability of solar energy infrastructure and output to climate change

Author

Listed:
  • Anthony Patt
  • Stefan Pfenninger
  • Johan Lilliestam

Abstract

This paper reviews the potential vulnerability of solar energy systems to future extreme event risks as a consequence of climate change. We describe the three main technologies likely to be used to harness sunlight—thermal heating, photovoltaic (PV), and concentrating solar power (CSP)—and identify critical climate vulnerabilities for each one. We then compare these vulnerabilities with assessments of future changes in mean conditions and extreme event risk levels. We do not identify any vulnerabilities severe enough to halt development of any of the technologies mentioned, although we do find a potential value in exploring options for making PV cells more heat-resilient and for improving the design of cooling systems for CSP. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Suggested Citation

  • Anthony Patt & Stefan Pfenninger & Johan Lilliestam, 2013. "Vulnerability of solar energy infrastructure and output to climate change," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 121(1), pages 93-102, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:climat:v:121:y:2013:i:1:p:93-102
    DOI: 10.1007/s10584-013-0887-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10584-013-0887-0
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10584-013-0887-0?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. Kerry Emanuel, 2005. "Increasing destructiveness of tropical cyclones over the past 30 years," Nature, Nature, vol. 436(7051), pages 686-688, August.
    2. Harder, Elizabeth & Gibson, Jacqueline MacDonald, 2011. "The costs and benefits of large-scale solar photovoltaic power production in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 789-796.
    3. Eltawil, Mohamed A. & Zhao, Zhengming, 2010. "Grid-connected photovoltaic power systems: Technical and potential problems--A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 112-129, January.
    4. Damerau, Kerstin & Williges, Keith & Patt, Anthony G. & Gauché, Paul, 2011. "Costs of reducing water use of concentrating solar power to sustainable levels: Scenarios for North Africa," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(7), pages 4391-4398, July.
    5. Seyboth, Kristin & Beurskens, Luuk & Langniss, Ole & Sims, Ralph E.H., 2008. "Recognising the potential for renewable energy heating and cooling," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(7), pages 2460-2463, July.
    6. Williges, Keith & Lilliestam, Johan & Patt, Anthony, 2010. "Making concentrated solar power competitive with coal: The costs of a European feed-in tariff," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 3089-3097, June.
    7. Armstrong, S. & Hurley, W.G., 2010. "A new methodology to optimise solar energy extraction under cloudy conditions," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 780-787.
    8. Radziemska, E., 2003. "The effect of temperature on the power drop in crystalline silicon solar cells," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 1-12.
    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. Adithya Thaduri & Diego Galar & Uday Kumar, 0. "Space weather climate impacts on railway infrastructure," International Journal of System Assurance Engineering and Management, Springer;The Society for Reliability, Engineering Quality and Operations Management (SREQOM),India, and Division of Operation and Maintenance, Lulea University of Technology, Sweden, vol. 0, pages 1-15.
    2. Chen, Hao & Liu, Simin & Liu, Qiufeng & Shi, Xueli & Wei, Wendong & Han, Rong & Küfeoğlu, Sinan, 2021. "Estimating the impacts of climate change on electricity supply infrastructure: A case study of China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    3. Al Afif, Rafat & Ayed, Yasmine & Maaitah, Omer Nawaf, 2023. "Feasibility and optimal sizing analysis of hybrid renewable energy systems: A case study of Al-Karak, Jordan," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 204(C), pages 229-249.
    4. Saidan, Motasem & Albaali, Abdul Ghani & Alasis, Emil & Kaldellis, John K., 2016. "Experimental study on the effect of dust deposition on solar photovoltaic panels in desert environment," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 499-505.
    5. 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).
    6. Markku Rummukainen, 2013. "Climate change: changing means and changing extremes," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 121(1), pages 3-13, November.
    7. Jennifer Cronin & Gabrial Anandarajah & Olivier Dessens, 2018. "Climate change impacts on the energy system: a review of trends and gaps," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 151(2), pages 79-93, November.
    8. Md. Rayid Hasan Mojumder & Fahmida Ahmed Antara & Md. Hasanuzzaman & Basem Alamri & Mohammad Alsharef, 2022. "Electric Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) Technologies: Impact on the Power Grid and Battery," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-53, October.
    9. Engeland, Kolbjørn & Borga, Marco & Creutin, Jean-Dominique & François, Baptiste & Ramos, Maria-Helena & Vidal, Jean-Philippe, 2017. "Space-time variability of climate variables and intermittent renewable electricity production – A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 600-617.
    10. Labordena, Mercè & Patt, Anthony & Bazilian, Morgan & Howells, Mark & Lilliestam, Johan, 2017. "Impact of political and economic barriers for concentrating solar power in Sub-Saharan Africa," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 52-72.
    11. Sawadogo, Windmanagda & Abiodun, Babatunde J. & Okogbue, Emmanuel C., 2020. "Impacts of global warming on photovoltaic power generation over West Africa," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 263-277.
    12. Perera, A.T.D. & Hong, Tianzhen, 2023. "Vulnerability and resilience of urban energy ecosystems to extreme climate events: A systematic review and perspectives," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    13. Adithya Thaduri & Diego Galar & Uday Kumar, 2020. "Space weather climate impacts on railway infrastructure," International Journal of System Assurance Engineering and Management, Springer;The Society for Reliability, Engineering Quality and Operations Management (SREQOM),India, and Division of Operation and Maintenance, Lulea University of Technology, Sweden, vol. 11(2), pages 267-281, July.
    14. Simone Lucatello & Roberto Sánchez, 2022. "Climate Change in North America: Risks, Impacts, and Adaptation. A Reflection Based on the IPCC Report AR6 - 2022," Remef - Revista Mexicana de Economía y Finanzas Nueva Época REMEF (The Mexican Journal of Economics and Finance), Instituto Mexicano de Ejecutivos de Finanzas, IMEF, vol. 17(4), pages 1-18, Octubre -.
    15. Park, Changyong & Shin, Seok-Woo & Kim, Gayoung & Cha, Dong-Hyun & Min, Seung-Ki & Lee, Donghyun & Byun, Young-Hwa & Kim, Jin-Uk, 2022. "What determines future changes in photovoltaic potential over East Asia?," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 338-347.
    16. Gaetani, Marco & Huld, Thomas & Vignati, Elisabetta & Monforti-Ferrario, Fabio & Dosio, Alessandro & Raes, Frank, 2014. "The near future availability of photovoltaic energy in Europe and Africa in climate-aerosol modeling experiments," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 706-716.
    17. Sirkku Juhola & Anna‐Greta Laurila & Fanny Groundstroem & Johannes Klein, 2024. "Climate risks to the renewable energy sector: Assessment and adaptation within energy companies," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(3), pages 1906-1919, March.
    18. Bastien-Olvera, Bernardo A., 2019. "Business-as-usual redefined: Energy systems under climate-damaged economies warrant review of nationally determined contributions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 862-868.
    19. Johan Lilliestam & Anthony Patt, 2015. "Barriers, Risks and Policies for Renewables in the Gulf States," Energies, MDPI, vol. 8(8), pages 1-23, August.

    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. George A. Gonzalez, 2016. "Transforming Energy: Solving Climate Change with Technology Policy . New York : Cambridge University Press . 360 pages. ISBN 9781107614970, $29.99 paperback. Anthony Patt , 2015 ," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 33(1), pages 111-113, January.
    2. Rawat, Rahul & Kaushik, S.C. & Lamba, Ravita, 2016. "A review on modeling, design methodology and size optimization of photovoltaic based water pumping, standalone and grid connected system," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 1506-1519.
    3. Lilliestam, Johan & Bielicki, Jeffrey M. & Patt, Anthony G., 2012. "Comparing carbon capture and storage (CCS) with concentrating solar power (CSP): Potentials, costs, risks, and barriers," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 447-455.
    4. Labordena, Mercè & Patt, Anthony & Bazilian, Morgan & Howells, Mark & Lilliestam, Johan, 2017. "Impact of political and economic barriers for concentrating solar power in Sub-Saharan Africa," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 52-72.
    5. Chen, Hao & Liu, Simin & Liu, Qiufeng & Shi, Xueli & Wei, Wendong & Han, Rong & Küfeoğlu, Sinan, 2021. "Estimating the impacts of climate change on electricity supply infrastructure: A case study of China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    6. Stanley Changnon, 2009. "Characteristics of severe Atlantic hurricanes in the United States: 1949–2006," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 48(3), pages 329-337, March.
    7. Raud, Ralf & Cholette, Michael E. & Riahi, Soheila & Bruno, Frank & Saman, Wasim & Will, Geoffrey & Steinberg, Theodore A., 2017. "Design optimization method for tube and fin latent heat thermal energy storage systems," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 585-594.
    8. Lianjie Qin & Laiyin Zhu & Baoyin Liu & Zixuan Li & Yugang Tian & Gordon Mitchell & Shifei Shen & Wei Xu & Jianguo Chen, 2024. "Global expansion of tropical cyclone precipitation footprint," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-10, December.
    9. Teh, Su Yean & DeAngelis, Donald L. & Sternberg, Leonel da Silveira Lobo & Miralles-Wilhelm, Fernando R. & Smith, Thomas J. & Koh, Hock-Lye, 2008. "A simulation model for projecting changes in salinity concentrations and species dominance in the coastal margin habitats of the Everglades," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 213(2), pages 245-256.
    10. Yanos Zylberberg, 2010. "Natural natural disasters and economic disruption," PSE Working Papers halshs-00564946, HAL.
    11. S. Seo, 2014. "Estimating Tropical Cyclone Damages Under Climate Change in the Southern Hemisphere Using Reported Damages," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 58(3), pages 473-490, July.
    12. Nicola Ranger & Falk Nieh�rster, 2011. "Deep uncertainty in long-term hurricane risk: scenario generation and implications for future climate experiments," GRI Working Papers 51, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    13. Zini, Gabriele & Mangeant, Christophe & Merten, Jens, 2011. "Reliability of large-scale grid-connected photovoltaic systems," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(9), pages 2334-2340.
    14. Mokri, Alaeddine & Aal Ali, Mona & Emziane, Mahieddine, 2013. "Solar energy in the United Arab Emirates: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 340-375.
    15. Bayrak, Gökay & Kabalci, Ersan, 2016. "Implementation of a new remote islanding detection method for wind–solar hybrid power plants," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 1-15.
    16. Li, Zhenpeng & Ma, Tao & Zhao, Jiaxin & Song, Aotian & Cheng, Yuanda, 2019. "Experimental study and performance analysis on solar photovoltaic panel integrated with phase change material," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 471-486.
    17. Tholkappiyan Ramachandran & Abdel-Hamid I. Mourad & Fathalla Hamed, 2022. "A Review on Solar Energy Utilization and Projects: Development in and around the UAE," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-27, May.
    18. Jun Wang & Zhenlou Chen & Shiyuan Xu & Beibei Hu, 2013. "Medium-scale natural disaster risk scenario analysis: a case study of Pingyang County, Wenzhou, China," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 66(2), pages 1205-1220, March.
    19. Geoffrey Heal & Howard Kunreuther, 2010. "Environment and Energy: Catastrophic Liabilities from Nuclear Power Plants," NBER Chapters, in: Measuring and Managing Federal Financial Risk, pages 235-257, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Laura A. Bakkensen & Robert O. Mendelsohn, 2016. "Risk and Adaptation: Evidence from Global Hurricane Damages and Fatalities," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(3), pages 555-587.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:spr:climat:v:121:y:2013:i:1:p:93-102. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.