Article

Climate Change Impacts on Residential and Commercial Loads in the Western U.S. Grid

Pacific Northwest Nat. Lab., Richland, WA, USA
IEEE Transactions on Power Systems (impact factor: 2.68). 03/2010; DOI:10.1109/TPWRS.2009.2030387 pp.480 - 488
Source: IEEE Xplore

ABSTRACT This paper presents a multidisciplinary modeling approach to quickly quantify climate change impacts on energy consumption, peak load, and load composition of residential and commercial buildings. This research focuses on addressing the impact of temperature changes on the building cooling load in ten major cities across the Western United States and Canada. Our results have shown that by the mid-century, building yearly energy consumption and peak load will increase in the Southwest. Moreover, the peak load months will spread out to not only the summer months but also spring and autumn months. The Pacific Northwest will experience more hot days in the summer months. The penetration levels of air-conditioning (a/c) systems in this region are likely to increase significantly over the years. As a result, some locations in the Pacific Northwest may be shifted from winter peaking to summer peaking. Overall, the Western U.S. grid may see more simultaneous peaks across the North and South in summer months. Increased cooling load will result in a significant increase in the motor load, which consumes more reactive power and requires stronger voltage support from the grid. This study suggests an increasing need for the industry to implement new technology to increase the efficiency of temperature-sensitive loads and apply proper protection and control to prevent possible adverse impacts of a/c motor loads.

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Keywords

a/c motor loads
 
autumn months
 
building cooling load
 
building yearly energy consumption
 
climate change impacts
 
commercial buildings
 
energy consumption
 
Increased cooling load
 
load composition
 
major cities
 
motor load
 
multidisciplinary modeling approach
 
paper presents
 
peak load
 
peak load months
 
possible adverse impacts
 
reactive power
 
summer months
 
temperature-sensitive loads
 
Western United States
 

Ning Lu