Forecasting the future for infrastructure

In this first article, Tom explores how weather and climate science helps to inform policy. 

Contents

• Climate science for policy makers
• UKCP - A climate variability and change toolkit
• Less carbon, more renewables
• Science and policy informing a brighter future

Climate change will shift the patterns and intensities of weather conditions throughout the 21st Century. Infrastructure must be designed, built and operated to withstand the worst weather extremes.

To ensure resilience, an understanding of how weather and climate information can be best applied is crucial. That’s where we come in. We work with governments and industry to do just that - to support decision making at every stage of the infrastructure lifecycle. This helps to ensure that infrastructure remains as resilient, safe and efficient to manage as possible.

Government policies are often the starting point for many large-scale infrastructure projects. Take a High-speed 2 rail network, a Heathrow runway 3, or incentives for offshore wind investment, for example. Industry standards and regulation also influence infrastructure projects. This could be through building codes, or design standards. Our scientists work with policy makers and regulators to help to ensure that climate science is applied in the best possible ways to inform relevant policies and standards.

Climate science for policy makers

What are the current weather and climate risks in the UK and globally? How do these risks change under different emission scenarios? How can we avoid the most dangerous impacts of climate change? What are the impacts and opportunities associated with limiting warming to different targets? These are some of the major climate questions being posed by Government. Science is critical to helping address them.

The Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme (HCCP) is a research programme that supports the development of core underpinning climate science in the UK. It is supported by the UK Government Departments of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and Environment and Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). The programme is framed around the climate questions above.

The science from HCCP feeds directly into decision making of Government. Many departments either use HCCP outputs directly or commission climate services to tailor the underpinning science for their particular policies. Our science also contributes to the global knowledge of climate change through bodies such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

UKCP - A climate variability and change toolkit

Translating the high-level policies into risks and responses for infrastructure is a difficult challenge. The UK Climate Projections (UKCP) is a toolkit that provides the most up to date assessment of how the climate in the UK is likely to change through the century.

UKCP was developed  by the Met Office, with funding from BEIS and DEFRA. The projections informed the latest round of Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA). The CCRA sets out the risks and opportunities facing the UK from climate change. The UK Government is required, under the 2008 Climate Change Act, to publish the CCRA every five years.

The projections also serve as a trusted dataset for use across many stages of the infrastructure lifecycle. They support risk assessment, adaptation reporting, infrastructure design and to inform business strategies.

The toolkit includes a wide range of reports and datasets that are all freely available. Infrastructure designers, owners and operators can combine them with other data and tools to understand the risks and opportunities associated with their assets. If infrastructure businesses need support  to better understand and interpret the science that is available, the Met Office can help.

Less carbon, more renewables

How do we transition to a low carbon system whilst continuing to maintain, and strengthen, standards in the resilience of supply? This is one of the key questions for the energy sector at the moment and one which our science is helping to inform. We are working with the National Infrastructure Commission as well as the Committee on Climate Change and energy system modellers (within Government and the private sector) to help understand the future resilience of a highly renewable energy network.

In this instance, climate transition activities (those that are helping to decarbonize the economy) have created an infrastructure resilience issue. Increased reliance on renewable energy sources, wind and solar, tend to be much more variable than traditional sources of electricity such as coal or gas.

At the same time, there are other important changes going on in the energy sector. This includes the likely rapid increase in the number of electric vehicles over the next few years. Using smart technologies there could be an opportunity to use the battery storage that electric vehicles provide, as well as other forms of storage, to put energy onto the electricity grid. This should help to manage peak demands. Equally the decarbonisation of heating may also put additional load on the electricity system.

Wind droughts occur when there are blocking high conditions across the UK. In winter this leads to low wind speed conditions coupled with cold winter temperatures. This results in periods of low wind generation coupled with high electricity demand. Although these aren’t particularly extreme weather conditions, they are potentially very adverse conditions for the future energy system.

It is essential for the future resilience of the energy system that it can cope with these conditions. This could be achieved through retaining gas, or nuclear backup capabilities; interconnections with Europe; increasing battery storage across the network; using smart network management techniques; hydrogen storage; or something else.

Wind droughts also occur in the summer and this was certainly true in 2018 when wind power generation was reduced for a sustained period during the summer heatwave. National Grid reported that wind power production was down from 12.9% to 10.4% of total electricity production in summer 2018, when compared to 2017, despite 10% more installed wind generation capacity.

At the moment this is less of a problem than when this occurs during winter. This is because the demand for electricity is much lower and also solar electricity generation is much higher. However, the likely increase in frequency and severity of summer heatwave conditions coupled with greater use of air-conditioning in the future could make summer wind droughts much more problematic for energy providers.

We are working with National Infrastructure Commission and Committee on Climate Change to produce datasets that can be used to test the resilience of future energy system designs to these kinds of adverse conditions. The datasets can also be used to inform future energy policy.

Science and policy informing a brighter future

Climate change is undoubtedly one of the key challenges facing governments, industry and society in the 21^st Century. Bringing policy makers, scientists and industry together is the way to address these challenges. By working together we can make the best use of the available science and ensure that infrastructure remains resilient.