Temporal fragmentation of the energy demand in Europe: Impact of climate change on the maneuverability of energy system

The energy demand in Europe is projected to be affected by climate change in the future. The heating needs are expected to decrease while the cooling needs are expected to increase.The study investigates the impact of climate change on the temporal fragmentation of heating and to a lesser extent cooling needs and its implication on the energy power system. Ten bias-corrected and downscaled simulations from CMIP6 at 25 × 25 km2 horizontal resolution over Europe have been used to estimate change in heating and cooling energy needs under four anthropogenic scenarios (SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0 and SSP5-8.5), using heating degree days (HDD) and cooling degree days (CDD) as proxies. Consistent with already published literature, here updated using the last CMIP6 simulation ensemble, the results show a large decrease of HDD over Europe and an increase of CDD under all scenarios. However, the study goes one step further by showing a fragmentation of the periods of heating needs during winter in the future which can potentially lead to a fragmentation of heating energy demand. In the worst-case scenario, periods of heating needs could be separated by up to 7 days, 9 times per winter. The cooling needs in summer are expected to be more frequent and last longer compared to the present climate. The fragmentation of temperature-sensitive energy needs for heating and to a lesser extent for cooling are expected to have an operational and economical impact on the balancing of the energy system.