Identification

Title

The role of humidity in determining future electricity demand in the southeastern United States

Abstract

Co-occurrence of high relative humidity levels and high temperatures can increase human discomfort, thereby affecting electricity requirements for space cooling. While relative humidity is generally projected to decrease over land in a warming climate, the combined impact of warming and changes in humidity on heat stress, and thus electricity demand, are less clear. To evaluate the role of relative humidity in determining future electricity demand, we first develop predictive models based, separately, on temperature (T) and a heat stress index (apparent temperature (AT)) at an hourly scale using meteorological reanalysis data and electricity load from the United States Energy Information Administration over the four electricity regions in the southeastern United States. The AT model performs better than the T model in the historical period. We then apply the predictive models to a set of high-resolution climate projections to understand the role of relative humidity in determining the electricity demand in a warmer climate. Due to the nonlinear behavior of heat stress with warming, future electricity demand is substantially larger when estimated from AT than from T. The increase in demand projected by AT ranges between 16%-29%, 20%-33%, 14%-32% and 13%-26% and that by T model ranges between 12%-19%, 15%-19%, 14%-22% and 12%-20% over Southeast, Florida, Carolina, and Tennessee respectively. This amplification of electricity demand by humidity is strongest for the highest temperature quantiles, but also occurs at moderate future temperatures that coincide with elevated relative humidity episodes, emphasizing the importance of considering humidity in future heat stress and electricity demand assessments.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7g73j6b

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2021-11-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact