Impacts of extreme climate conditions due to climate change on the energy system design and operation

Extreme climate events occur more frequently and stronger in the future due to climate change. Maintaining the energy security during extreme conditions is essential to reduce the impacts of extreme climate and avoid disasters. Resilient design of the energy system to resist against extreme climate events are investigated considering four scenarios, namely, typical demand (TD), extreme demand (ED), extreme renewable energy generation (ER) and, extreme demand and renewable generation (EDR). A regional climate model is used to develop the four scenarios with the assistance of a building simulation model. Subsequently, multi-energy hub is optimized for each scenario considering net present value (NPV) and grid integration (GI) level as the objective functions. A significant difference in objective function values is observed when analyzing the four scenarios. Similarly, a significant difference in the energy system design is observed when moving from one scenario to another. The results of the study reveal that a energy system design is strongly influenced by extreme climate scenario considered which will make the energy system to be a sub-optimal when operating at a different climatic condition with a significant performance gap. Therefore, improving the climate flexibility of energy systems is an essential task which is challenging at the early design process.