To prepare for Ninth Plan, Council examines climate change data showing shifts in temperature, river flows

At Miller Island near The Dalles, Ore., future impacts of climate change are expected to shift seasonal flows compared with historical averages, increasing them during the winter and spring, but lowering them in the summer months.

In the 2021 Power Plan, the Council used climate change data to inform its load forecasts, hydro operations, wind profiles, as well as evaluate the potential for energy efficiency and demand response.

As work ramps up on the Ninth Power Plan, the Council will continue to use this climate change-informed data to model loads and resource options in the plan. At its October meeting in Portland, the Council heard a primer on what climate change data staff will use to help develop this plan and reviewed recent trends in the data.

One expected impact of climate change is increases in extreme weather events. In preparation for the Ninth Plan, the power division staff is exploring how well the existing climate change data capture extreme events. Early indications are that many of the recent events experienced in the Northwest have been captured within the existing climate change data, including the 2021 summer heat dome and the January 2024 winter storm. Staff will provide a briefing at an upcoming meeting specifically focusing on capturing and planning for extreme weather in the Ninth Plan.

Council Power System Analyst Dan Hua provided an overview of the data during the October meeting (read presentation | watch video). In the 2021 Plan, staff selected a set of climate scenario data provided by the River Management Joint Operating Committee (RMJOC) that best captured the range of future projected river flows and temperatures. Staff also used wind, solar radiation, and humidity data from the Climatology Lab and the Northwest Knowledge Network to inform future weather files for modeling energy efficiency and demand response potential.

Hua said they're proposing to use these sets again for the Ninth Plan, which were reviewed by the Climate and Weather Advisory Committee this year. The data will be expanded to include temperature data from more locations (25 locations around the Northwest and 13 utilities' balancing authorities), five new locations for wind, and potentially adding solar generation.

RMJOC climate scenarios forecast:

• Higher winter river flows, leading to higher hydro generation, and higher winter temperatures resulting in lower load.
• In contrast, projections for summer expect generally lower hydroelectric generation, and higher electricity demand due to more heatwaves and higher temperatures.
• For example, at The Dalles, stream flows over the next 30 years are generally expected to increase in winter and spring, but decrease between June-September.

Capturing these shifts and impacts is important to anticipating loads and resource availability.

Further reading:

Over the past several months, staff has produced a series of primers to help the Council prepare for developing the Ninth Power Plan.

• Representation of markets in modeling (October 2024) - read presentation | watch video
• Global assumptions primer & discount rate (September 2024) - read presentation | watch video
• Environmental methodology (September 2024) - read presentation | watch video
• Demand response supply curve development methodology (September 2024) - read presentation | watch video
• Generating resource reference plants methodology (August 2024) - read presentation | watch video
• Distributed solar approach (August 2024) - read presentation | watch video
• Conservation supply curve development methodology (July 2024) - read presentation | watch video

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