New implications for the impact of extreme weather on systems with a high proportion of renewable energy

Extreme weather may become the new constant of global climate change

In the context of global warming, the frequency and intensity of extreme weather disaster events are increasing. The newly released Working Group I report of the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2021/8/9) states that human influences have unquestionably caused warming of the atmosphere, oceans and land, with widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, oceans, cryosphere and biosphere. The scale of the overall change in the climate system and its many aspects are unprecedented for centuries, if not millennia. Human-induced climate change is already affecting weather and climate extremes in every region of the globe. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for a global climate emergency at the Climate Ambition Summit on December 12, 2020.

The occurrence of extreme weather and climate events in the world also has the characteristics of mass and frequent occurrence. According to statistics, from 2000 to 2019, the global heat wave increased by 332%, heavy precipitation increased by 234%, droughts increased by 128%, storms increased by 140%, and wildfires increased by 146% compared to 1980-1999. In July this year, Henan continued to suffer heavy rainfall, and the peak rainfall in Zhengzhou reached 201.9 mm in one hour on the 20th, reaching the maximum rainfall in one hour in nearly 50 years. From 20 o 'clock on the 17th to 20 o 'clock on the 20th, three days of rainfall has approached the total amount of the past year. Severe floods in Zhengzhou and other places have caused heavy casualties and economic losses. Wu Guoding, vice governor of Henan province, said at a press conference on August 2 that 302 people had been killed and 50 were missing. Among them, 292 people were killed and 47 were missing in Zhengzhou. The extraordinary flood in Zhengzhou, Henan province, is just a microcosm of the natural disasters that have hit the world this year. In June, lightning ignited wildfires in Shasta Trinity National Forest in northern California, fueled by strong winds, high temperatures and dry weather. In mid-July, many European countries, including Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, were hit by floods. Roads turned into rivers, houses collapsed, parked vehicles were washed away, and electricity and communications were cut. The torrential rains and floods are the worst natural disaster to hit Germany and other neighboring countries in nearly 60 years. During July and August, many parts of India were flooded by unusually heavy monsoon rains, and many places are battling deadly floods and landslides. Rare droughts this summer in the United States and Brazil, two of the world's biggest breadbaskets, led to a sharp rise in food prices, and data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization show that the global food price index has risen nearly 40% year-on-year by May 2021.

Second, climate change may become a new variable to test energy security

Traditional energy sources usually refer to coal, oil, natural gas, hydropower and nuclear power. Its main feature is to rely on the energy generated by the combustion of its own substances as energy. Although its mining, transportation, storage and so on are affected by external conditions to a certain extent, but in general, the degree of impact is not high. However, the use of traditional energy will produce a lot of greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution, causing global warming and endangering human health. Renewable energy, especially wind and solar energy, depends on the conversion of wind and solar radiation resources in the atmosphere into electricity and other energy sources, and achieve new energy supply capacity. The advantage is that the use of renewable energy is zero carbon emissions and zero pollution. It can be seen that its dependence on wind resources and solar radiation resources is very high. This is a shortcoming in the utilization of renewable energy, which must be paid close attention to.

Extreme weather and climate events are often accompanied by abnormal changes in meteorological elements. For example, in the high temperature heat wave and static stable atmospheric environment, due to a large range of static wind environment, wind power generation is almost impossible in a certain period of time. Under the conditions of extreme cold and continuous rain without solar radiation, it will cause solar photovoltaic components to have no solar radiation for conversion. China's renewable energy development and utilization scale ranks first in the world, providing strong support for green and low-carbon energy transformation. The installed power generation capacity has achieved rapid growth. By the end of 2020, the total installed capacity of renewable energy in China has reached 930 million kilowatts, accounting for 42.4% of the total installed capacity, up 14.6 percentage points from 2012. The utilization level continues to improve, in 2020, China's renewable energy generation reached 2.2 trillion KWH, accounting for 29.5% of the total social electricity consumption, an increase of 9.5 percentage points over 2012, China's non-fossil energy accounted for 15.9% of primary energy consumption. However, at a time when renewable energy is increasingly becoming the backbone of a new energy mix with a high proportion, the new risks posed by climate change need to be paid close attention. China should learn from the lessons of relevant countries and strengthen its capacity to ensure climate resilience and energy security.