Kamiar Khayambashi

Kamiar Khayambashi

PhD researcher applying machine learning and quantitative modeling to reliability, risk analysis, and critical infrastructure systems.

Long-Term Power Grid Planning Under Climate Change and Energy Transition

Overview

Co-authored a comprehensive analytical review examining long-term climate change impacts on electric power systems. The study synthesizes evidence across climate science, power systems engineering, and energy transition research to understand how climate-driven risks reshape future electricity infrastructure planning.

Most existing studies analyze individual impacts—such as demand growth, generation degradation, extreme weather risk, or renewable integration—in isolation. This work integrates these dimensions into a unified perspective on long-term grid planning under climate change and deep uncertainty.

Analytical Framework

The study organizes climate-related risks into a structured framework connecting physical climate impacts, infrastructure performance, and long-term planning challenges.

Climate Impacts on Power System Infrastructure

The review synthesizes empirical evidence on multiple pathways through which climate change affects electricity systems:

  • Rising electricity demand due to temperature and humidity increases
  • Reduced efficiency of thermoelectric power plants under higher ambient temperatures
  • Increased transmission losses and reduced line capacity during extreme heat
  • Growing exposure to extreme events such as hurricanes, floods, wildfires, and heatwaves
  • Cascading risks across interconnected infrastructure systems including telecommunications, water, transportation, and fuel supply networks

Together these mechanisms create compounding stresses on electricity infrastructure reliability and planning.

Deep Uncertainty in Climate and Energy Transitions

The review highlights limitations of deterministic planning approaches in the presence of deep uncertainty. Climate projections, technology costs, policy trajectories, and infrastructure vulnerabilities all exhibit substantial uncertainty.

Key sources of uncertainty include:

  • Future electricity demand under climate warming
  • Frequency and intensity of extreme weather events
  • Technology cost trajectories and deployment rates
  • Policy and regulatory dynamics affecting decarbonization pathways

The study argues that long-term grid planning must explicitly address these uncertainties rather than relying on single-scenario forecasts.

Renewable Transition Under Climate Stress

The review also examines how climate change interacts with renewable energy deployment.

Renewable-dominated electricity systems face new challenges including:

  • Weather-driven variability and intermittency
  • Increased exposure of distributed energy assets to extreme weather
  • Operational challenges associated with high renewable penetration
  • Policy, regulatory, and social acceptance constraints affecting deployment

These factors highlight the need to incorporate resilience considerations into renewable transition strategies.

Contribution

This work provides a cross-disciplinary synthesis connecting climate science, infrastructure resilience, and energy system planning.

Key contributions include:

  • Integration of climate impacts, infrastructure vulnerabilities, and energy transition dynamics within a unified analytical framework
  • Identification of deep uncertainty as a central challenge in long-term grid planning
  • Synthesis of evidence across climate science, energy systems, and resilience literature
  • Development of a structured research agenda for uncertainty-aware power system planning

Relevance

Long-term electricity infrastructure planning must increasingly account for climate-driven risks and uncertainty. By synthesizing insights across multiple research domains, this work provides a foundation for developing more adaptive and resilient energy system planning approaches.

The study informs future research on climate-aware capacity expansion modeling, resilience-oriented grid design, and uncertainty-informed infrastructure planning.

Khayambashi, K., Anand, H., Asadi, S., & Alemazkoor, N. (2024).
Long-term power grid planning: Navigating climate change and energy transition challenges.
In Advancing the Resilience of the Power Grid under a Changing Climate. IEEE & Wiley.