Chapter 3 The Economic Impacts of Climate Change on Energy Demand for Space Heating and Cooling
Climate Change Damage Cases The optimal generating mix from the Base Case, as previously shown in Figure 3-4 was used to constrain the capacity adjustment in the climate change damage cases in order to simulate partial adjustment to climate change. The resulting changes in residential and commercial heating and cooling demand can be seen in Table 3-3. The percentage changes shown in this figure are relative to the Base Case. These changes in demand represent the impacts of climate change on residential and commercial energy consumers, allowing them to adjust to climate change on both the supply and demand side using only the technology, policies and know-how in the Base Case. No long-run adaptation is included. As expected the changes in demand follow the pattern of the simulated changes in heating and degree-days (Table I-3 in Annex I) and the corresponding adjustment factors introduced into MARKAL (Table 3-1). The most interesting feature about Table 3-3 is that the cooling impacts, both positive and negative, dominate the heating impacts in relation to the Base Case. That is: a change in heating degree-days has a larger impact on the commercial sector than the residential sector. This is “as expected” due to the relative size of the two sectors in terms of their space air conditioning use and the fact that space air conditioning in the summer is expected to grow more rapidly in the commercial than the residential sector. However, note that while the percentage changes in sectoral electricity demand in one of the sectors can be quite large (as high as 40% to 50% relative to the Base Case) in many of the cases, the percentage change in the total demand by these two sectors is generally quite small, especially in the first two cases (DC1 and DC2). In DC1 energy demand never increases by more than 3.5% in both sectors and in DC1 never more than 1.1%. This is because the effects of climate change on electricity demand in these two scenarios are offsetting. Only in the third scenario (DC3) are the climate impacts reinforcing in way that increases in electricity demand in both sectors. In DC3, energy demand increases slowly, relative to the Base Case, in response to climate change, reaching a level where it is 8% higher in 2030. Finally, it is important to note that, at least in the two most likely scenarios (DC1 and DC2), the increases in electricity demand due to warmer temperatures in the summer and/or cooler temperatures in the winter are far higher toward the end of the projection period than in the beginning. This is line with the temperature projections and suggests that the MARKAL analysis needs to be extended farther into the future. Table 3-3: Percentage change (from the Base Case) in residential and commercial and electricity demand for the three Climate Change Damage cases, 2006-2030 2006 DC1: Commercial
2009
2012
2015
2018
2021
2024
2027
2030
Hotter in the Summer and in the Winter Cooling
0.0%
4.9%
9.9%
13.9%
17.8%
23.3% 30.4%
37.0% 45.0%
Heating
0.0%
-0.2%
0.2%
0.7%
0.4%
-1.2%
-2.8%
-1.1%
-4.6%
DC1: Residential
Cooling
0.0%
3.8%
8.8%
13.2%
18.0%
23.7%
30.5% 38.2% 46.3%
Heating
0.0%
-0.2%
-0.3%
-0.2%
0.2%
0.2%
-0.4%
-0.1%
-1.8%
DC1: Both
DC1Total
0.0%
0.1%
0.3%
0.9%
1.7%
2.2%
2.7%
3.7%
3.5% |45|