Developing Next-Generation Cal-Adapt Features to Support Natural Gas Sector Resilience
Supporting advanced statistics and incorporation of additional data sets to inform natural gas sector resilience
Eagle Rock Analytics, Inc.
Recipient
Sacramento, CA
Recipient Location
8th
Senate District
10th
Assembly District
$200,000
Amount Spent
Completed
Project Status
Project Result
This project has ended, and the final report has been published. The project addressed issues related to variability and uncertainty and provided scientific guidance to support development of new tools of interest to the gas sector. The project contributed to a CEC staff presentation at a CPUC workshop in support of the long-term gas system planning rulemaking (R.20-01-007). Specifically, the project provided an analysis and visualizations portraying the historical "1-in-10" minimum daily temperature event in a population center in Southern California, as well as projected changes to and uncertainty in minimum temperature associated with the "1-in-10" event. This analysis was provided to an IOU and has led to development of a Cal-Adapt tool to automate the analysis. The project also provided a rigorous approach to the representation of extreme precipitation events in terms relevant to infrastructure management.
View Final ReportThe Issue
California's gas system is vulnerable to extreme weather associated with a highly variable and changing climate. Cal-Adapt is growing in the scope and complexity of the data it hosts. Concurrently, the needs of gas stakeholders are evolving as the impacts of climate change on California become better understood. Cal-Adapt requires additional scientific and technological guidance and support to accommodate the increasing complexity of data and tools. Moreover, the field of climate modeling is developing quickly, and Cal-Adapt needs scientific expertise and guidance to identify opportunities to improve resilience of the gas system to climate change.
Project Innovation
The lead researcher served as scientific lead of Cal-Adapt, working closely with Cal-Adapt's development team and with gas sector stakeholders to support development of tools and visualizations that successfully incorporate advanced scientific and statistical methods and more clearly convey uncertainty as well as the potential range of outcomes. The researcher represented Cal-Adapt in the scientific community and in conversations with state agencies and IOUs, identified opportunities to improve Cal-Adapt to meet the needs of gas sector stakeholders, and provided scientific and analytical guidance to the Cal-Adapt development team. Specific improvements supported by this grant include providing an analytical basis for incorporation of extreme value analysis that underlies, for example, the extreme precipitation tool; identification of new datasets that provide quality-controlled, continuously-updated observed historical data and select weather stations across California; and development of best practices related to meta-data for new datasets.
Project Goals
Project Benefits
This project provides climate informatics to gas IOUs, governmental stakeholders, elected officials, and energy sector stakeholders. Such informatics can be used to understand gas infrastructure vulnerability in the context of risk from wildfire, sea-level rise, or extreme climate events. Informed deployment of infrastructure will increase reliability through reduced damages, decrease costs through reduced losses, and increase safety of the delivery system. Data and algorithms hosted on Cal-Adapt can be used to help understand shifts in fossil gas consumption and challenges to resilience.
Reliability
This project will improve gas reliability by enabling investor owned utilities to understand gas infrastructure vulnerability in the context of risk from wildfire, sea-level rise, or extreme climate events. Informed decision-making around infrastructure management can increase reliability through reductions of damage.
Key Project Members
