Climate Change
Every day, engineers are leading the way to build a greener and more environmentally sustainable energy future.
Last fall, IEEE PES commissioned a nationwide survey to gauge the public’s perception of climate change, and specifically the role of engineers in driving solutions to combat climate change.
The results indicate that:
Climate change and extreme weather are top environmental concerns nationwide.
A majority are optimistic that technology is the key to addressing our climate future.
Believe engineers play an important role in environmental protection
Agree that engineers are leaders in the fight against climate change
Feel confident that engineers can develop solutions to help address climate change
Source: Park Street Stategies Survey, commissioned by IEEE PES, November 2023.
View the full survey results here. [PDF 1.7MB]
IEEE PES can and should be more vocal about the innovative work engineers are doing to progress climate solutions.
Some Key Takeaways
- 72% view an outdated electric grid presents the biggest energy-related challenge, followed by government mandates and net-zero goals being misaligned with the current energy infrastructure realities.
- 50% worry that it may be difficult to reverse climate change on a global scale but 60% believe that technology is the key to addressing it.
- More than a third has little understanding of the role that engineers play in addressing climate change.
- Even so, respondents trust engineers the most to find solutions to achieving a clean energy future, more so than researchers, environmental advocacy groups, utility companies, or government agencies.
- 79% believe that engineers have the knowledge and skill set to research and develop new forms of renewables.
What does that mean for IEEE and PES?
- Most respondents view engineers positively and acknowledge that they play a key role in addressing climate change, but do not understand what that role is. Educating the public about their role would be beneficial.
- A large majority – 82% – expressed an interest in learning more about what engineers are doing, or planning to do, to address climate change.
- Messages that provide concrete examples of what engineers do to address climate change (e.g., constructing green buildings, monitoring environmental conditions, reducing electronic waste, etc.) resonate the most.
- Engineers are most often described with positive terms such as “innovative,” “creative,” and “smart.”
When it comes to describing our energy future, the word “sustainable” resonates the most, followed by “cleaner.” Words like “smart,” “modernized,” and “engineered” resonate less.
Other IEEE Climate Change Resources
Every day, engineers are leading the way to build a greener and more environmentally sustainable energy future.
Last fall, IEEE PES commissioned a nationwide survey to gauge the public’s perception of climate change, and specifically the role of engineers in driving solutions to combat climate change.
The results indicate that:
Climate change and extreme weather are top environmental concerns nationwide.
A majority are optimistic that technology is the key to addressing our climate future.
Believe engineers play an important role in environmental protection
Agree that engineers are leaders in the fight against climate change
Feel confident that engineers can develop solutions to help address climate change
Source: Park Street Stategies Survey, commissioned by IEEE PES, November 2023.
View the full survey results here. [PDF 1.7MB]
View the full survey results here. [PDF 1.7MB]
IEEE PES can and should be more vocal about the innovative work engineers are doing to progress climate solutions.
Some Key Takeaways
- 72% view an outdated electric grid presents the biggest energy-related challenge, followed by government mandates
and net-zero goals being misaligned with the current energy infrastructure
realities. - 50% worry that it may be difficult to reverse climate change on a global scale but 60% believe that technology is the key to addressing it.
- More than a third has little understanding of the role that engineers play in addressing climate change.
- Even so, respondents trust engineers the most to find solutions to achieving a clean energy future, more so than researchers, environmental advocacy groups, utility companies, or government agencies.
- 79% believe that engineers have the knowledge and skill set to research and develop new forms of renewables.
What does that mean for IEEE and PES?
- Most respondents view engineers positively and acknowledge
that they play a key role in addressing climate change, but do not
understand what that role is. Educating the public about their role would
be beneficial. - A large majority – 82% – expressed an interest in learning more about what engineers are doing, or planning to do, to address climate change.
- Messages that provide concrete examples of what engineers do to address climate change (e.g., constructing green buildings, monitoring environmental conditions, reducing electronic waste, etc.) resonate the most.
- Engineers are most often described with positive terms such as “innovative,” “creative,” and “smart.”
When it comes to describing our energy future, the word “sustainable” resonates the most, followed by “cleaner.” Words like “smart,” “modernized,” and “engineered” resonate less.
IEEE’s mission is to advance technology for the benefit of humanity. Today the world faces its largest modern-day threat—climate change. We recognize this global crisis and are committed to helping combat and mitigate the effects of climate change through pragmatic and accessible technical solutions and providing engineers and technologists with a neutral space for discussion and action.
IEEE PES Perspectives
Our members have made climate change initiatives a priority. Read what they have to say about power and energy, and how we can make a difference through the smart applications of technology.
- All
- Aerospace electronics
- Aging
- Air pollution
- Aircraft propulsion
- Airplanes
- Array signal processing
- Authentication
- Automotive engineering
- Batteries
- Bayes methods
- Biological system modeling
- Biomass
- Boats
- Carbon
- Carbon dioxide
- Carbon emissions
- Carbon tax
- Caron emissions
- Circuit breakers
- Circuit faults
- Climate change
- Coal
- Cogeneration
- Computational modeling
- Computer architecture
- Conference Panel
- Control systems
- Controllability
- Convex functions
- Cooling
- Correlation
- Costs
- Cryogenics
- Current transformers
- Data models
- Data processing
- Decarbonization
- Decision making
- Decision theory
- Deep learning
- Degradation
- Dielectric breakdown
- Digital simulation
- Discharges (electric)
- Distributed databases
- Economics
- Electric breakdown
- Electric potential
- Electric vehicles
- electricity
- Electricity supply industry
- Electrodes
- Emissions trading
- Energy consumption
- Energy efficiency
- Energy management
- Energy measurement
- Energy resolution
- energy saving
- Energy storage
- Energy Transportation
- Environmental factors
- Europe
- Feature extraction
- Feedback loop
- Finance
- Fires
- Floods
- Forecasting
- Fossil fuels
- foundational support systems
- Frequency control
- Frequency conversion
- Frequency measurement
- Fuel cells
- Fuels
- Gases
- General Meeting
- Generators
- Geology
- Global warming
- Government policies
- green
- Green products
- Greenhouse effect
- Grid Technologies
- Harmonic analysis
- Heat pumps
- Heating
- Heating systems
- Hurricanes
- HVDC transmission
- Hybrid power systems
- Hydrogen
- Hydrogen powered vehicles
- Hydrogen storage
- Ice
- IEEE smart grid
- Insulation
- Intelligent sensors
- Internal combustion engines
- interview
- Inverters
- Investment
- Investments
- ISGT
- Islanding
- Levee
- lifestyles
- Lighting
- Load flow analysis
- Load management
- Load modeling
- Low-carbon economy
- Maintenance engineering
- Markov processes
- Mathematical model
- Measurement
- Meteorological factors
- Meteorology
- Microgrids
- new information technologies
- Open source software
- Optimization
- Panel Discussion
- Partial discharges
- PES Day
- Photovoltaic systems
- Planning
- Power distribution planning
- Power electronics
- Power generation
- Power grid
- Power grids
- Power markets
- Power outages
- Power system dynamics
- Power system economics
- Power system planning
- Power system reliability
- Power system stability
- Power systems
- Power transmission
- Power transmission lines
- Predictive models
- Pricing
- Probabilistic logic
- Probability density function
- Production
- Programming
- Protons
- Reactive power
- Real-time systems
- Regulation
- Reinforcement learning
- reliability
- Renewable energy sources
- Renewal Energy
- Resilience
- Resistance heating
- Resource management
- Risk management
- Robustness
- Routing
- Runtime
- Safety
- Satellites
- Sea measurements
- Security
- Sensor systems and applications
- Smart Buildings
- Smart cities
- Smart grids
- Solar energy
- Solar panels
- Solar power generation
- Space heating
- Stakeholders
- Statistics
- Stochastic processes
- Storms
- Sulfur hexafluoride
- Superconductivity
- Support vector machines
- Sustainable development
- Switchgear
- System integration
- TandD
- Target recognition
- TD Grid Modernization
- Technical Report
- Technological innovation
- Thermostats
- Transactive energy
- Transforms
- Transient analysis
- Transportation
- Trigeneration
- Tropical cyclones
- Uncertainty
- Urban areas
- Value of DERs
- Value of Grid Resources
- Video
- Voltage control
- Voltage fluctuations
- Voltage measurement
- Waste management
- Water heating
- Water resources
- Webinar
- Wind
- Wind energy
- Wind energy generation
- Wind farms
- Wind forecasting
- Wind power generation
- Wind turbines
- Wireless communication
ComEd Grid Labs-Why the Power Sector Needs Advanced Labs
The severity and frequency of severe weather events has risen in recent years due to climate change, while cyber-attacks have also become more of a threat as technological advances threaten to outpace cyber security. Stakeholders have recognized the imperative nature of supplying sustainable, resilient power to every community. The power industry, and particularly advanced utilities have been working tirelessly to ensure the resiliency of the power grid, and to lead the transformation into grid of the future. Labs play a particularly important role in this transformation as will enable an accurate and expedited system modeling and analysis. The paper discusses ComEd's efforts, as the largest electric utility in the state of Illinois serving more than 4 million customers, to build ...
Operational Security in 100% Inverter-Based Power Systems: Experiences from Hawai‘i
The integration of renewable generation in electrical power systems is exponentially increasing for multiple reasons. First, a fast decarbonization of the electrical energy system is a critical milestone to slow climate change and facilitate the decarbonization of other energy sectors, such as transportation and heat. Second, renewable generation from wind and solar have become much cheaper compared to conventional sources like gas, coal, and nuclear. Third, renewable generation is in many cases decentralized, which increases the resilience of the energy system, for example, in the face of natural disasters.
Read More >
Read More >
Hydrogen-Powered Aircraft: Hydrogen-Electric Hybrid Propulsion for Aviation
The ever-increasing demand for passenger air travel means unprecedented aircraft market growth in the coming decades. However, large airline fleets lead to serious environmental concerns. A clear goal was set during the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26): securing global net-zero emissions by midcentury while keeping 1.5 °C of temperature rise within reach. Hydrogen (H 2 ) propulsion technology provides one of the most promising opportunities to meet this target and decarbonize global aviation. Thus, this article reviews and collates state-of-the-art research related to H 2 –electric hybrid aircraft. After introducing the potential benefits of H 2 propulsion, fuel cell (FC) auxiliary power in airplanes and H 2 FC-powered aircraft are discussed.
Read More >
Read More >
Strengthening Transmission System Resilience Against Extreme Weather Events by Undergrounding Selected Lines
Natural disasters, such as extreme weather events (EWEs), can cause significant damage to power systems. In fact, it is expected that the intensity and frequency of EWEs will increase the next years due to climate change, making power system resilience enhancement necessary. This paper proposes a transmission resilience planning solution by determining the lines to be placed underground in order to minimize load shedding in the most cost-efficient way taking into account historical EWEs (HEWEs).
Read More >
Read More >
Lighting a Reliable Path to 100% Clean Electricity: Evolving Resource Adequacy Practices for a Decarbonizing Grid
It is the year 2045 in the carbon-neutral southwestern United States. While summer heatwaves have increased in frequency and intensity because of climate change, the region’s abundant solar generation produces tremendous amounts of low-cost energy on hot summer days. This energy not only serves daytime loads but it also charges an enormous fleet of batteries that, aided by wind and geothermal power, discharge overnight to effectively eliminate summertime electric reliability concerns.
Read More >
Read More >
Mobile and Portable De-Icing Devices for Enhancing the Distribution System Resilience Against Ice Storms: Preventive Strategies for Damage Control
Climate change has reportedly increased the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as heatwaves, heavy rains, hurricanes, tornados, flood, fire, and ice storms. Ice storms are considered one of the most severe natural disasters that can disrupt people's daily lives and incur infrastructural damages. Ice storms are the leading cause of large-scale power outages in the United States and elsewhere during the winter season. The damage caused by ice storms can easily result in major power outages, blackouts, and at times shut down entire metropolitan areas.
Read More >
Read More >
Utility-Scale Shared Energy Storage: Business Models for Utility-Scale Shared Energy Storage Systems and Customer Participation
Due to climate change, supply scarcity, and society’s desire to expand access to electricity and improve energy-system resilience, there has been an increasing demand to invest in and use renewable energy sources (RESs) that are environmentally friendly, efficient, sustainable, and affordable. This has diversified and decentralized energy sources and increased their penetration.
Read More >
Read More >
Multi-Energy Microgrids: Designing, Operation Under New Business Models, and Engineering Practices in China
With the global awareness of climate change and environmental problems, major powers over the world have set their goals to contribute to a low-carbon society. China announced the target of "carbon peak and carbon neutrality," requiring a cleaner, carbonfree, economic, and sustainable energy system. To this end, there are two promising approaches. The first is to increase the penetration of clean energies, such as wind power and photovoltaics (PVs). This can reduce carbon emissions effectively.
Read More >
Read More >
Data-Driven Classifier for Extreme Outage Prediction Based On Bayes Decision Theory
The growing concern over catastrophic weather events, mostly as a direct result of climate changes, has underscored the need for expanding traditional power system contingency analyses to handle the associated risks of extreme power outages. To enable power system operators to make timely decisions when facing extreme events, we explore in this paper the viability of a classifier which uses the machine learning approach based on the Bayes decision theory as a means of predicting power system component outages.
Read More >
Read More >
Enable a Carbon Efficient Power Grid via Minimal Uplift Payments
The COVID-19 has slowed down global economic growth. Meanwhile, it also significantly cuts the global carbon emission, which provides a golden opportunity for the whole world to combat the climate change together. While the former policies (e.g., the CAFE standards, renewable portfolio standards, etc.) have reduced certain level of fossil fuel consumption, the most effective measures (such as carbon tax, cap-and-trade programs) are still far from ready for global implementation. This paper investigates an alternative way to achieve a more carbon efficient power grid using the uplift payment scheme.
Read More >
Read More >
Islanding Detection of Grid-Forming Inverters: Mechanism, Methods, and Challenges
Over the past decades, because of boosted energy demands and the serious concerns of climate change, inverter-based resources (IBRs) have been widely deployed to integrate renewable energy into power systems for the goal of carbon neutrality. Thanks to the full controllability of power electronic devices, IBRs have the capability to implement reliable and flexible power regulation, which makes them technically feasible for enhancing the resilience and energy efficiency of power systems.
Read More >
Read More >
Intra-Hour Photovoltaic Generation Forecasting Based on Multi-Source Data and Deep Learning Methods
Global issues pertaining to climate change have necessitated the rapid deployment of new energy sources, such as photovoltaic (PV) generation. In smart grids, accurate forecasting is essential to ensure the reliability and economy of the power system. However, PV generation is severely affected by meteorological factors, which hinders accurate forecasting. Various types of data, such as local measurement data, numerical weather prediction, and satellite images, can reflect meteorological dynamics over different time scales. This paper proposes a novel data-driven forecasting framework based on deep learning, which integrates an advanced U-net and an encoder-decoder architecture to cooperatively process multi-source (time series recording and satellite image) data.
Read More >
Read More >
Flexibility in Sustainable Electricity Systems: Multivector and Multisector Nexus Perspectives
As environmental concerns increase, researchers, policy makers, and the public in general are becoming more interested in options to make energy more sustainable while at the same time ensuring that energy systems are affordable, reliable, and resilient. This dynamic is bringing about challenges across the world, as established energy systems (such as those in cities) must be enhanced to integrate large volumes of renewable energy sources (RES), while new or evolving systems (for instance, in developing economies) must be planned to manage the increasingly extreme conditions associated with climate change.
Read More >
Read More >
The Fragile Grid: The Physics and Economics of Security Services in Low-Carbon Power Systems
Worldwide, there are unstoppable forces toward low-carbon power systems that can support the fight against climate change and help solve the security of supply issues in many countries. Low-carbon grids are likely to be characterized by substantial renewable energy sources, both centralized and distributed, combined with intelligent and dynamic demand-side technology and multisector electrification (including heating, transport, and future fuels). In this context, successfully resolving the "affordability-sustainability-reliability" energy trilemma is crucial for paving the way to low-carbon energy futures.
Read More >
Read More >
Latin American Energy Markets: Investment Opportunities in Nonconventional Renewables
Latin America is very rich from the point of view of its varied energy resources, with an abundance of hydroelectric generation and large reserves of fossil fuels. At present, although there is a general awareness of climate change issues associated with fossil fuel use, the facts show that economic needs over the short and medium terms are the engine of technology change.
Read More >
Read More >
Supporting Energy Transition in Transmission Systems: An Operator’s Experience Using Electromagnetic Transient Simulation
The electric power industry is faced with the challenges of mitigating climate change, maintaining low electricity prices, and satisfying high reliability requirements for power supply. The increased application of power electronics devices is the inevitable result of the changes being experienced by the system. Careful analysis is required to install and operate power electronics devices. This article describes the use of electromagnetic transient (EMT) simulation on the French transmission grid to meet these new challenges in the context of energy transition.
Read More >
Read More >
A Numerical Approach for Hybrid Simulation of Power System Dynamics Considering Extreme Icing Events
The global climate change leads to more extreme meteorological conditions such as icing weather, which have caused great losses to power systems. Comprehensive simulation tools are required to enhance the capability of power system risk assessment under extreme weather conditions. A hybrid numerical simulation scheme integrating icing weather events with power system dynamics is proposed to extend power system numerical simulation. A technique is developed to efficiently simulate the interaction of slow dynamics of weather events and fast dynamics of power systems. An extended package for PSS/E enabling hybrid simulation of icing event and power system disturbance is developed, based on which a hybrid simulation platform is established.
Read More >
Read More >
Planning With Multiple Transmission and Storage Investment Options Under Uncertainty: A Nested Decomposition Approach
Achieving the ambitious climate change mitigation objectives set by governments worldwide is bound to lead to unprecedented amounts of network investment to accommodate low-carbon sources of energy. Beyond investing in conventional transmission lines, new technologies, such as energy storage, can improve operational flexibility and assist with the cost-effective integration of renewables. Given the long lifetime of these network assets and their substantial capital cost, it is imperative to decide on their deployment on a long-term cost-benefit basis. In this paper, we propose a novel, efficient, and highly generalizable framework for solving large-scale planning problems under uncertainty by using a temporal decomposition scheme based on the principles of Nested Benders.
Read More >
Read More >
A Probabilistic Transmission Planning Framework for Reducing Network Vulnerability to Extreme Events
The restructuring of electric power industry has brought in plenty of challenges for transmission expansion planning (TEP), mainly due to uncertainties. The commonly used probabilistic TEP approach requires the network to meet an acceptable risk criterion. However, a series of blackouts in recent years caused by extreme weather-related events have raised the concerns about network vulnerability through calculating the expected risk value. In this paper, we have proposed the concept that TEP should be economically adjusted in order to make network less vulnerable to extreme events (EEs) caused by climate change, e.g., floods or ice storms.
Read More >
Read More >
Robust Resiliency-Oriented Operation of Active Distribution Networks Considering Windstorms
Recent climate changes have created intense natural disasters, such as windstorms, which can cause significant damages to power grids. System resilience is defined as the ability of the system to withstand such high-impact low-probability events. This paper proposes a robust resilient operational schedule for active distribution networks against windstorms. In order to capture dynamic behaviors of these disasters, zonal disaster-specific uncertainty sets associated with the windstorm are proposed.
Read More >
Read More >
From Reliability to Resilience: Planning the Grid Against the Extremes
Although extreme events, mainly natural disasters and climate change-driven severe weather, are the result of naturally occurring processes, power system planners, regulators, and policy makers do not usually recognize them within network reliability standards. Instead, planners have historically designed the electric power infrastructure accounting for the so-called credible (or "average") outages that usually represent single or (some kind of) simultaneous faults (e.g., faults on double circuits).
Read More >
Read More >
A Multi-State Model for Transmission System Resilience Enhancement Against Short-Circuit Faults Caused by Extreme Weather Events
Due to global climate change, the effect of extreme weather on power systems has attracted extensive attention. In the prior-art grid resilience studies, the hurricanes or wildfires are mainly defended in terms of expected line damages, while they are prone to trigger short-circuit fault (SCF) evolved with dynamic influence in reality. In this paper, a fragile model is developed to evaluate the nodal SCF probability considering the insulation aging of equipment and extreme weather condition.
Read More >
Read More >
Stochastic Unit Commitment in Isolated Systems With Renewable Penetration Under CVaR Assessment
Isolated regions and islands are facing imported fossil-fuel dependency, higher electricity prices, and vulnerability to climate change. At the same time, they are increasing their renewable penetration and, therefore, risk for electric utilities. Integrating stochastic energy resources in noninterconnected systems may take advantage of an intelligent and optimized risk-averse unit commitment (UC) model. This paper presents a two-stage stochastic UC model with high renewable penetration including reserve requirements for the efficient management of uncertainty.
Read More >
Read More >
Resilience Enhancement With Sequentially Proactive Operation Strategies
Extreme weather events, many of which are climate change related, are occurring with increasing frequency and intensity and causing catastrophic outages, reminding the need to enhance the resilience of power systems. This paper proposes a proactive operation strategy to enhance system resilience during an unfolding extreme event. The uncertain sequential transition of system states driven by the evolution of extreme events is modeled as a Markov process. At each decision epoch, the system topology is used to construct a Markov state. Transition probabilities are evaluated according to failure rates caused by extreme events.
Read More >
Read More >
Other IEEE Climate Change Resources
© Copyright 2023 IEEE — All rights reserved. A not-for-profit organization, IEEE is the world’s largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity.