The Effects of Climate Change on Renewable Energy Distribution in New York State: Results from High-Resolution Dynamic Downscaling.

Renewable energy (onshore and offshore wind, utility-scale and distributed solar generation, and hydropower) is supplying a rapidly increasing share of electricity to New York State’s (NYS) power grid. In June 2019, NYS adopted goals whereby renewable energy systems will account for at least 70% of statewide electric generation by 2030; the addition of 9000 MW of offshore wind generation by 2035, and 100% generation from renewable energy sources by 2040 (currently, approximately 25% of NYS’s energy generation is from renewable energy sources—predominantly hydropower) . However, little is known about the potential effects of climate change on the spatial and temporal distribution of renewables in NYS. With support from the NYS Energy Research and Development Authority, a public-private research partnership is conducting a comprehensive study of climate change and its potential effects on the state’s renewable energy resources, and how this will affect the State’s aggressive energy generation goals.

We use the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF model version 3.9.1) system to dynamically downscale climate projections from three models in the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project 5 (CMIP5) ensemble for two different climate change scenarios, Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5 and RCP 8.5, for near-future (2018 - 2037) and mid-future (2038 - 2057) periods. These future scenarios are compared with historical climate (1998-2017) simulations forced by runs of the CMIP5 models and a simulation forced by the ERA-Interim reanalysis. Two inner nests covering the State and adjacent offshore waters were run at 6 km resolution (Figure 1), to capture terrain effects and land-lake and land-sea circulations, providing insight into how future climate change may influence NYS’s weather regimes, which in turn control the distribution of the renewable energy resource.

Here, we present an overview of project results including state-wide quantitative future estimates of power production and uncertainty constraints, including the potential temporal and spatial redistribution of wind, solar, and hydropower resources developed from the downscaling exercises.