Methods for Exploring Evolution of the Power Grid Under Climate Drivers At Neighborhood Scale

As climate conditions change, populations shift, the location of energy supply and use changes, and networked infrastructures simultaneously evolve to accommodate new load centers and minimize vulnerability to natural disasters. Infrastructures and their interdependencies will change in reaction to climate drivers as the networks expand into new population areas and portions of the networks are abandoned when populations move from economically degraded locations. These changes are a strong driver for regional convergence in which vulnerable nodes become concentrated in constrained geographic locations. Combining new ORNL downscaled climate models with neighborhood–level critical infrastructure models create a highly robust simulation framework to project future infrastructure networks and calculate their vulnerable nodes when climactic changes are applied. This project will demonstrate through a Gulf Coast Case Study a combined framework that explicitly accounting for uncertainties in future climate conditions. The three demonstrated objectives of this project are: (i) Demonstrating the methodology for climate-based infrastructure risk assessment at neighborhood scales; (ii) Assessing the emerging vulnerabilities or robustness of this future infrastructure network as extreme events and new stresses evolve; and (iii) Developing indicators of emerging problems within the nations matrix of interdependent infrastructure systems as all sectors respond to climate-related disruptions and changes in energy supply and use.