Fostering Climate Resilient Electricity Infrastructures

Fostering Climate Resilient Electricity Infrastructures

Bollinger, L.A.

Weijnen, M.P.C. (promotor)
Dijkema, G.P.J. (promotor)

Technology, Policy and Management

ESS

2015-01-07

Heat waves, hurricanes, floods and windstorms - recent years have seen dramatic failures in electricity infrastructures sparked by short-term departures of environmental conditions from their norms. Driven by a changing climate, such deviations are anticipated to increase in severity and/or frequency over the coming decades. This will have important implications for the systems that supply and transport our electricity. In light of this, resilience is an essential characteristic of future infrastructure systems. The notion of resilience implicitly accepts the possibility of unforeseen disruptions and failures and focuses on the capacity of systems to handle them - to survive unexpected perturbation, recover from adversity and gracefully degrade - as well as an ability to adapt and learn over time. How can we foster a climate resilient electricity infrastructure in the Netherlands? To address this question, this thesis synthesizes insights from multiple computer models using multiple modeling techniques. These models stress the nature of the electricity infrastructure as a complex and evolving system, interconnected within itself and with other infrastructures. Beyond these insights, the thesis contributes a framework, an approach and a set of tools for supporting the development of climate resilient electricity infrastructures in the Netherlands and elsewhere.

electricity
infrastructure
network
climate change
resilience
modeling & simulation
interdependency

https://doi.org/10.4233/uuid:d45aea59-a449-46ad-ace1-3254529c05f4

Next Generation Infrastructures Foundation

9789079787654

Institutional Repository

doctoral thesis

(c) 2015 Bollinger, L.A.