EL.ADAPT - Impacts of Climate Change and Adaptation in the Electricity Sector - The Case of Austria in a Continental European Context

Power generation is not only an important source of carbon emissions, it is also vulnerable to the changed climatic conditions due to the growing share of renewables. Temperature increase will also lead to significant impacts on demand. As electricity is supplied to all other economic sectors, changes in e.g. electricity infrastructure affect the whole economy. This project investigates the climate change impacts on the electricity industry and the influence of adaptation strategies on the Austrian economy up to 2050. Due to the international link- age of the electricity sector, the analysis considers the European context. Based on high- resolution climate change and hydrology scenarios, and an econometric demand model, a techno-economic electricity sector model (ATLANTIS) is coupled with a multi-country multi- sector CGE model. The uncertainties across models are addressed by a reliability analysis.