Future Atmospheric Icing Conditions for Energy Infrastructure over Fennoscandia Resolved with a High-Resolution Regional Climate Model

Societies nowadays are increasingly reliant on electricity, underscoring the need for reliable energy production. In cold climates, ice accumulation can cause significant harm to structures such as power transmission lines, leading to power loss or, in the worst case, the collapse of wires or transmission towers. Thus, as climate change is expected to impact winter weather conditions in northern Europe, its effects on atmospheric icing occurrence over Fennoscandian region is a crucial area of study. We utilize an ice accretion model based on ISO 12494, driven by outputs from the high-resolution regional climate model HCLIM, to analyze in-cloud icing conditions over two twenty-year periods: mid-century (2040-2060) and end-of-century (2080-2100). The regional outputs are bounded by two global climate models (EC-EARTH and GFDL-CM3) under the RCP 8.5 emission scenario. We present the modelling results for in-cloud icing conditions over northern Europe compared to the control period (1985-2005).  The analysis is done over several altitudes, which allows consideration of the effect on transmission power lines in terms of corona losses, as well as on ice formation affecting wind power production.

This work is supported by EU HORIZON-RIA project n:o 101093939, RISKADAPT - Asset Level Modelling of Risks in the Face of Climate Induced Extreme Events and Adaptation.