How important do you think the availability of climate science is for the energy sector today?

It is widely recognized by society that climate variability and change is threatening their businesses, property and lives. The Paris Agreement, in 2015, represented a historical milestone towards collective actions to mitigate the impacts of climate change and adapt to it. Decision-makers including water providers, policy-makers, offshore wind companies, insurance and many more, need climate information to guide their actions more than ever before.  The energy sector currently accounts for more than two thirds of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and its transformation to a low-carbon future brings a fundamental and comprehensive change in the way energy is generated, with exploitation of renewable sources being central to this global effort. Generation of and operational planning for renewable energy are strongly affected by weather and climate, which cause wide variations in both energy supply and demand. Therefore, energy sector stakeholders need to have access to climate information to become more resilient to extreme weather and to accelerate the transition to a greener and more efficient energy system. The Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS) initiative, which is spearheaded by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), coordinates efforts by the United Nations, governments and organizations to develop science-based climate information for various climate-sensitive sectors, including energy. GFCS seeks to incorporate climate information and predictions into socio-economic planning, policy and practice.

 What are the barriers to the energy sector gaining and using this information?

The energy sector stakeholders, among other socio-economic sector stakeholders, are rather advanced in the use of weather and climate information for their planning and operations. Nevertheless, several challenges exist for the weather climate information providers to meet the data requirements of the energy sectors users. One major barrier is the lack of products and services that are customer-driven in terms of accuracy, frequency of delivery and location specific. Such gap is currently hindering the integration of weather and climate information in the energy sector business and decision-making. For this reason, the GFCS included as one of its main components the User Interface Platform (UIP) to facilitate the continuing technical and scientific interaction between weather and climate services providers and users to co-develop and co-produce products and tools in support of decision-making. Last year GFCS published a roadmap for developing user-friendly climate services that can contribute to the development of renewable energy as well as a more climate resilient and efficient energy industry. The document can be downloaded here: http://www.wmo.int/gfcs/sites/default/files/Priority-Areas/Energy/GFCS_Energy%20Exemplar_JN17453.pdf

What are the WMO’s hopes for energy sector and meteorology collaboration?

WMO is one of the United Nations specialized agencies that provides world leadership and expertise in international cooperation in the delivery and use of high-quality, authoritative weather, climate, hydrological and environmental services by its state Members, for the improvement of the well-being of societies of all nations. One of the key priorities of WMO is the implementation of climate services worldwide for five socio-economic areas: health, disaster risk reduction, water, food security and energy. For example, at country level WMO is encouraging regular communication between energy and meteorological specialists to collect requirements for improved, or new, meteorological and climate products and services. Wind energy production in particular requires improved climate predictions that better estimate the changes in wind speed for upcoming seasons, years and decades. This is critical for anticipating wind-energy supplies, which, in turn, is needed to facilitate the large-scale integration of wind energy into the broader energy supply system. Through a rising demand for new services by the renewable energy sector, WMO hopes to enhance the capacity of the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) to deliver better forecasts quality products and more location/user specific and targeted forecasts outputs. These products together with an increased sharing of data and best practices at regional and global level would enable the development of renewable energy systems and assist countries to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and their Nationally Determined Contributions to the Paris Climate Change Agreement.

How will the MOU help achieve this?

The World Energy and Meteorology Council (WEMC) is a WMO key partner for the implementation of climate services for the renewable energy sector. WMO and WEMC have already collaborated in the publication of the GFCS roadmap for the energy priority area, previously mentioned, and have organized a successful training course in Norwich, UK, in July 2016. Now, with the formalization of the partnership thorough the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding, both organizations commit to work together for the implementation of the Global Climate Services for Energy (GCSE) program. GCSE aims to provide robust, scientifically validated and energy tailored climate-based products to advise energy operators, planners and policy makers to improve investment decisions for planning and operations of energy systems and to achieve an effective integration of renewable energy for a safe, reliable, more accessible and cleaner energy supply in developing countries. The project focuses on achieving improved climate-related energy outcomes in a set of participating countries (Tanzania, Colombia, Peru, Papua New Guinea, Burkina Faso and Moldova) by providing, on the one hand, the required technical support for the project implementation and, on the other hand, by developing ways for up scaling the tools, methods, lessons and results obtained in these countries on a worldwide basis. This year we are also planning to organize an updated version of the training course held in 2016. The 2018 course will be held in Shanghai, China, just prior the ICEM Conference. Registration are open, hurry up (https://www.wemcouncil.org/wp/event/training-course-on-climate-and-energy-2018/)

What role do you think renewable sources of energy have to play in 2018 and beyond?

Decarbonisation of the world’s energy system must become a common vision for governments and all the other stakeholders for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement limiting-temperature targets. Governments will need urgently to increase the use of low-carbon technologies, like renewable energy, in all the economic sectors and increase investment in research and innovation of new technologies in clean energy generation. These measures are essential also to accelerate the global access to a more secure, affordable, decarbonised and climate resilient global energy system with combined and aligned development and climate targets. Such transition requires enabling policy framework to facilitate the development of renewable energy and to provide long-term stability for private investments in renewables. The time between now and 2030 is critical to achieve the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement towards climate neutral and resilient economy and society in the second half of this century. Transformation of the energy system in line with the Paris Agreement temperature limit is technically possible but will require around 70% of the global energy supply mix in 2050 to be generated by low-carbon energy systems. The largest share of the emissions reduction potential from now to 2050 is coming from renewables and energy efficiency. Achieving such potential will require a significant modernization of the electricity grids to ensure minimum losses and maximum flexibility in electricity systems to integrate large shares of variable renewable generation, including the role of storage. Financial support, technology development and transfer, as well as capacity-building are essential to enable action at scale in developing countries where successful planning, climate change mitigation and measures to foster sustainable development require large investments.

– February 2018