Impact of climate change on Spanish electricity demand

Abstract

This paper evaluates the influence that climate change could exert on electricity demand 15patterns in Spain conditioned on the level of warming, with special attention to the 16seasonal occurrence of extreme demand days. For this purpose, assuming the currently 17observed electricity demand–temperature relationship holds in the future, we have gen-18erated daily time series of pseudo-electricity demand for the recent past and the twenty-19first century by using simulated temperatures from statistical downscaling of global 20climate model experiments. We show that both the frequency and severity of extreme 21electricity demand days at the national level are expected to increase, even for low levels 22of regional warming. Moreover, the occurrence of these extremes will experience a 23seasonal shift from winter to summer due to the projected temperature increases in both 24seasons. Under a RCP8.5 scenario of greenhouse gas emissions, the extended summer 25season (June–September) will concentrate more than 50% of extreme electricity demand 26days by the mid-century, increasing to 90% before the end of the century. These changes 27in electricity demand have considerable spatial heterogeneity over the country, with 28northwestern Spain experiencing the seasonal shift later than the rest of the country, 29due to the relatively mild summer temperatures and lower projected warming there.