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The role of electric grid research in addressing climate change

Nature Climate Change volume 14, pages 909–915 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Addressing the urgency of climate change necessitates a coordinated and inclusive effort from all relevant stakeholders. Critical to this effort is the modelling, analysis, control and integration of technological innovations within the electric energy system, which plays a major role in scaling up climate change solutions. This Perspective presents a set of research challenges and opportunities in the area of electric power systems that would be crucial in accelerating gigaton-level decarbonization. Furthermore, it highlights institutional challenges associated with developing market mechanisms and regulatory architectures, ensuring that incentives are aligned for stakeholders to effectively implement the technological solutions on a large scale.

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Fig. 1: The crucial role of electric grid research in tackling climate change.
Fig. 2: Power grid resource adequacy assessment utilizing climate data.

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Acknowledgements

The work of L.X., S.M., Q.Z. and P.C. is supported in part by Texas A&M Energy Institute, College of Arts and Sciences at Texas A&M University and Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station. The work of T.H. is supported by US National Science Foundation Grant 2328205. The work of L.X. is also supported in part by US National Science Foundation Grant ECCS-2038963.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    Le Xie, Subir Majumder & Qian Zhang

  2. Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Le Xie

  3. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USA

    Tong Huang

  4. Department of Oceanography, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    Ping Chang

  5. Department of Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia

    David J. Hill

  6. Robert W. Galvin Center for Electricity Innovation, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL, USA

    Mohammad Shahidehpour

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Contributions

L.X., S.M., T.H. and Q.Z. conceived and designed the paper. P.C. and D.J.H. contributed material and analysis tools. L.X., S.M., T.H. and Q.Z. drafted the paper with input from all co-authors. L.X., S.M. T.H., Q.Z., P.C., D.J.H. and M.S. read and approved the final version of the paper.

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Correspondence to Le Xie.

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Nature Climate Change thanks Qixin Chen, Harrison Fell and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Xie, L., Majumder, S., Huang, T. et al. The role of electric grid research in addressing climate change. Nat. Clim. Chang. 14, 909–915 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-02092-1

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