The assessment of the impacts of climate change on the power system should consider not only the innovation on supply technology but should also account for the evolution of energy demand. The latter will, of course, depend immensely on human habits and behavior, which might change dramatically with the development of society. Thus, the uncertainty on future trends makes the long-term future of power systems unpredictable. Recent electrification tendencies, such as in space conditioning and transportation, can represent a significant increase in electricity demand and should be included in future demand since these technologies are expected to be part of future living standards. The replacement of internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles by electric vehicles (EVs) is growing as global commitments for GHG emission reductions are rising. Besides creating some stabilization issues on the power system, the GHG emissions avoided compared to ICE vehicles depend on the energy mix of the system [41]. However, the shift towards renewable energy sources might enhance EVs penetration due to environmental co-benefits. Although the system reliability can be threatened by the EVs penetration, the
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impacts of climate change on dispatchable power plants (e.g. hydropower) to balance the supply and demand exposes a new opportunity for EVs. The EVs’ batteries can act as energy buffers (vehicle-to-grid, V2G), charging and discharging as best for the system. As the power system increases its complexity and vulnerability to climate change and new electric loads, V2G can play a key role in helping with its management.
These discussions, from the electrification of heat loads to the introduction of EVs and V2G concepts, are mainly based on technology evolution and the addition of new loads. However, the future may entail more than the replacement of already existing elements for new ones with similar functions. It will also be highly dependent on people’s behavior in different aspects of their lives and their consumption trends. One important driver for societal development is the cultural factor, which may suggest different reactions to new concepts or technologies, such as the introduction of autonomous vehicles or energy efficiency in cooking [14]. As society develops, new living standards arise, and new consumption patterns appear.
One of the most recent developments in the transportation sector has been the arising of the autonomous vehicle concept. This concept may change mobility, as autonomous vehicles may present a promising mobility option by improving comfort, security and driving efficiency [42]. The implementation of autonomous vehicles decreases the need for vehicle ownership, contributing to the decrease in the total number of vehicles. It changes the current driving patterns since these vehicles would be traveling for longer hours and would be parked for fewer hours. From a societal point-of-view, they would enable a higher autonomy for people, particularly for people with reduced mobility (e.g. elderly or impaired people). The first steps introducing this concept were in Singapore, where the NuTonomy was the first taxi company to test the use of autonomous vehicles in a real context [43]. Other large companies, such as Uber, Google, and Tesla, have also been mentioned to be testing autonomous cars [43]–[46].
The sharing economy is another concept that has the potential for social and economic change, and it is already a reality with online platforms such as Uber or Airbnb [47], [48]. Exchanging services or goods in a peer-to-peer framework can provide more convenience for both sides of the market [48]. High demand impacts should be expected from the dissemination of such business models. For instance, it could lead to lower transport demand in the case of deliveries of goods – several deliveries would be done at once in the same area, avoiding the commute of each customer to and from the store. On the other
hand, a peer-to-peer energy market – where each household generates its electricity (e.g. photovoltaics) and can sell/buy to/from neighbors – may change the overall electricity demand profile. Households with different demand profiles would complement each other with bi-directional energy exchange, avoiding the energy purchase from the utility and, consequently, decreasing its supply requirements.
The urban society is also envisioned as a changing concept with the population redistribution and socio-economic development. The reorganization of future cities may result in extremely different evolution paths for society, for instance leading to a horizontal or vertical spread of housing. The former increases the need for more efficient transportation (larger road distances), thus demanding higher energy for mobility. The latter may incentivize more densely populated cities; it would reduce road vehicles’ use by promoting local services and commerce, but it would also entail higher energy demand due to the need to transport both people and objects to higher floors. Those two perspectives lead to changing and considerably different demand patterns, but new materials and technology innovation in buildings and transportation could mean decreasing demand needs compared to today’s requirements. In addition, the growing internet usage may promote a stronger weight of teleworking, possibly resulting in lower transportation consumption by strongly decreasing commuting.
Currently, the exodus of a large fraction of the population towards the main cities and their reorganization to increase capacity may seem a probable scenario (mostly in developing regions), but this may change soon. Society may take a step back and reorganize unused land to create new urbanistic plans by building one-floor households spread across currently unused areas instead of high-rise buildings. Society evolution is also affected by policies often implemented after tragic events driven by social pressure to make drastic changes in some societal dimensions. One example is the recent interest in policies in Portugal to incentivize the exodus towards the interior to avoid its abandonment [49], [50]; these policies were accelerated following the 2017 fires. All of these options are open and the uncertainty on the direction that social evolution might take is vast, and it will certainly be different across the globe. However, when trying to understand the future demand evolution it is crucial to consider that the living society will evolve. It may not have the same needs that it has now and those needs may be influenced by other aspects than economic factors, population numbers or climate
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change. The uncertainty of societal evolution leads to the need for including a wide range of scenarios when assessing the evolution of power systems.