Environmental sustainability of Southwestern US utility-scale photovoltaic expansion under changing climate conditions

美国西南部公用事业规模光伏发电扩张在不断变化的气候条件下的环境可持续性

• 批准号: 1940781
• 负责人: Ashley Broadbent
• 金额: $ 29.84万
• 依托单位: Arizona State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-01-15 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1940781&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Environmental; sustainability; Southwestern; US; utility

Photovoltaic (PV) systems can have a local air temperature warming effect that can impact their efficiency and may further exacerbate the warming of the local environment. Interactions between PV, land, and the atmosphere is further complicated by climate changes. The potential for widespread PV deployment to act as a reliable source of renewable energy must therefore be evaluated in a modeling framework that can accurately characterize future regional-scale climatic conditions, faithfully represent relevant PV-land-atmosphere interactions, and assess electricity production. This project targets accurate and robust assessment of climatic effects associated with future deployment of PV systems. The research will couple a PV surface energy balance model that has been developed and extensively evaluated offline by the research team to the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) climate prediction system (referred to as WRF-SolarPV). Through a climate-based application of WRF-SolarPV that accounts for spatially explicit PV deployment extent and configuration, the research team will generate maps of PV deployment “sweet spots” across the Southwestern US, highlighting locations with high levels of sustained solar irradiance that align with suitably low PV module temperatures under a future climate. Specifically, the research will address how future climate may impact the solar resource across the southwestern United States, and what hydro-climatic implications associated with future PV electricity generation can be anticipated. Through an explicit accounting of electricity generation, the research will address key concerns associated with reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and environmental sustainability. The framework to be developed will enable advancements in numerical modeling of energy systems via examination of the regional characteristics of current and future PV-land-atmosphere interactions, including feedbacks among GHG warming, local-hydro-climates, and electricity production in a dynamically interacting system. The research team will develop the open-source state-of-the science tool WRF-SolarPV to be broadly disseminated to the larger climate modeling, engineering and energy communities through the National Center for Atmospheric Research, which supports, maintains and disseminates the WRF system for over 39,000 users in over 160 countries. Development and provision of such a tool is anticipated to be of considerable value to stakeholders considering transition to PV as a renewable source of energy but lacking the assessment tools to do so. The project will also facilitate participation and mentoring of high school students, through an educational collaboration with local public charter schools that have participated in summer intern programs with the research team in the past.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

光伏（PV）系统可以具有局部空气温度变暖效果，从而影响其效率，并可能进一步散发出当地环境的变暖。气候变化使PV，Land和大气之间的相互作用更加复杂。因此，必须在建模框架中评估宽度PV部署的潜力作为可靠的可再生能源来源，以准确地表征未来的区域气候条件，并忠实地代表相关的PV-Land-atmoplosphere相互作用，并评估电力生产。该项目针对与PV系统的未来部署相关的聚类效应的准确而强大的评估。这项研究将融合一个PV表面能量平衡模型，该模型已被研究团队离线开发和广泛评估，以与天气研究和预测（WRF）气候预测系统（称为WRF-SolarPV）。通过基于气候的WRF-SolarPV的应用，该应用在空间上是明显的PV部署范围和配置，研究团队将在我们西南部的我们西南部生成PV部署“甜点”的地图，突出显示了具有高度可持续的太阳辐照度的位置，这些位置与适当低的PV模块化温度相吻合，以下未来的气候温度较低。具体而言，这项研究将解决未来气候如何影响美国西南部的太阳能资源，以及可以预期与未来PV发电相关的水性气候影响。通过对发电的明确会计，该研究将解决与减少温室气体排放和环境可持续性有关的关键问题。要开发的框架将通过检查当前和未来的PV-Land-Aposphere相互作用的区域特征，在能量系统的数值建模中取得进步，包括温室温暖变暖，局部 - 氢气中的反馈以及动态相互作用系统中的电力生产。研究团队将通过国家大气研究中心（National Apentericric Research）开发开源的科学工具WRF-SolarPV，将广泛传播到更大的气候建模，工程和能源社区，该中心在160多个国家 /地区为超过39,000名用户提供了支持，维护和传播WRF系统。预计这种工具的开发和提供对考虑到PV过渡为可再生能源的利益相关者将具有考虑价值，但缺乏评估工具。该项目还将通过与过去与研究团队一起参加暑期实习生计划的当地公共特许学校的教育合作来促进高中生的参与和心理化。这项奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并通过使用基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响审查标准通过评估来诚实地支持我们的支持。