- ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Institute of Geography and Earth sciences, Department of Meteorology, Budapest, Hungary (timea.kalmar@ttk.elte.hu)
Renewable energy sources are gaining increasing importance due to the rising prices, depletion of fossil fuels, and the need to achieve climate protection goals. Solar energy has the advantage of being exploitable to some extent worldwide. In East-Central Europe, particularly in Hungary, the use of solar energy is growing rapidly, with the installed capacity of photovoltaic power plants increasing from 14 MW to ~4 GW between 2012 and 2022.
The estimation of photovoltaic power potential (PVpot) and its changes based on the outputs of general circulation models (GCMs) has become a popular research topic over the past decade, since GCM biases can lead to biases in regional climate models through the downscaling process. In general, previous studies have estimated an increase in PVpot for Central Europe during the 21st century. However, the effects of inter-model variability and internal variability of GCMs on PVpot in Europe, particularly in East-Central Europe, are less thoroughly examined.
This analysis seeks to assess the sensitivity of PVpot to inter-model variability and internal variability of GCMs in Europe, with a focus on East-Central Europe. For this purpose, the number of days with small (or large) PVpot will be calculated which – as it was pointed out by Feron et al. (2021) – may exhibit greater differences in the future compared to historical periods, unlike the PVpot itself. Different realizations of future outputs from CMIP6 GCMs for 2071-2100 (based on the SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5 scenarios) will be compared to historical outputs for 1981-2010, focusing on seasonal changes. For comparison reasons, reanalyses (e.g., ERA5, CERRA) will also be applied for the historical period.
Our findings provide essential insights for energy planners to mitigate the impacts of future weather variability.
Feron et al. (2021). Nature Sustainability, 4(3), 270-276
The research was funded by the National Multidisciplinary Laboratory for Climate Change (RRF-2.3.1-21-2022-00014).
How to cite: Kalmár, T. and Kristóf, E.: Understanding future solar energy trends in Europe: The impact of the variability in CMIP6 GCMs on photovoltaic power potential, with a special focus on East-Central Europe, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-976, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-976, 2025.
