Climate change-induced stressors and power system resiliency

Current excess electricity generation capacity may provide a level of resilience to absorb individual climate change-induced stressors to the Western U.S. power system, but this is less clear if stressors are compounded. Our goal is to identify where these vulnerabilities may exist in the current system to be useful for future capacity planning. Using a water-power-economy framework that iteratively links a power system model with a computable general equilibrium model, we find that existing excess generating capacity can absorb climate change-induced increases in electricity demand for cooling. However, adding stress to the system from generation taken temporarily offline due to exceedance of water temperatures results in unmet demand in certain states. Additionally, when power plant retirements are added, unmet demand is lower since retirements increase electricity prices thereby inducing lower electricity demand, leading to less demand being unmet. Thus, retirements expected mid-century provide a valuable price signal for consumers to conserve and avoid future outages. However, the impacts on the economy are mixed.