# Assessment of the Impacts of Climate Change on Power Systems: The Italian Case Study
## 5 Climate Change and Future Italian Power System Scenarios
### European Scenarios for Climate Change  
The two papers analyzed below assess the impact of future climate change on European electricity generation through future energy systems. The literature sources used to define the scenarios for the future energy systems were different in [13; 14]. In [13], the authors used [43] as reference for the baseline mix of European countries (including Italy) in 2012; for the scenarios of future generation mixes, the authors considered a 60% and 80% RES penetration of the considered energy systems, respectively, and used [44] as reference. The climate change inputs used for these energy system scenarios were the 1.5 \({}^{\circ}\)C, 2 \({}^{\circ}\)C, and 3 \({}^{\circ}\)C warming levels. The projections given by the results showed a negative impact of climate change on all three energy mix scenarios for all countries, except for the Scandinavian countries and Latvia, for which the impact will be positive (probably due to the strong presence of hydropower in the energy share of these countries). An important aspect noted in [13] was that total production becomes more robust with regard to the three warming levels when moving from the baseline scenario (2012) to the scenarios with an energy mix of 60% and 80% RES (2050). In this sense, it can be said that an increasing share of RES in an electric power system makes it more resilient and adequate. This fact can be explained by considering that the increase in RES penetration in each country reduces the share of thermoelectric power generation, which is more sensitive to climate change impacts (especially thermoelectric power plants with river water cooling). Focusing on Italy, what has been said before holds true, and Table 2 shows the percentage changes in electricity generation [13]. Geothermal power was included in hydropower because of its very small share in the generation mix (almost 2%). Biomass, waste, nuclear and fossil generation were included in the thermoelectric sector. In addition, CCS technology was included in the thermoelectric sector. For their generation mix, the authors [13] selected scenarios for Italy in which nuclear technology is included. It is worth mentioning that in Italy, nuclear power generation is, so far, prohibited by law, since Italian society voted against nuclear technology in two referendums (1987 and 2011) and repealed several laws in favor of nuclear technology. Therefore, the authors of this article consider it unlikely that nuclear technology will be introduced in Italy in the next few years. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c} \hline \hline \multicolumn{2}{c}{
\begin{tabular}{c} **Baseline Mix** \\ **2012** \\ \end{tabular} } & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**60\% RES**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**80\% RES**} \\ \hline \multicolumn{2}{c}{Wind} & 4.5 & Wind & 11 & Wind & 14.4 \\ \hline PV & 6.4 & PV & 29.3 & PV & 40 \\ \hline Hydro+Geotherm & 16.7 & Hydro+Geotherm & 15.9 & Hydro+Geotherm & 14.4 \\ \hline Thermoelectric & 72.3 & Thermoelectric & 43.9 & Thermoelectric & 31.1 \\ \hline \(\mathbf{1.5}\,{}^{\circ}\mathbf{C}\) & \(-4\%\) & & \(-2.5\%\) & & \(-2\%\) \\ \hline \(\mathbf{2}\,{}^{\circ}\mathbf{C}\) & \(-6.5\%\) & & \(-4\%\) & & \(-3\%\) \\ \hline \(\mathbf{3}\,{}^{\circ}\mathbf{C}\) & \(-12\%\) & & \(-7.5\%\) & & \(-6\%\) \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 2: Scenarios for the energy mix (the share of technology subsectors is expressed in %) and the change in electricity generation for the Italian case study in 2050 [13]. In [14], on the other hand, the scenarios for the future energy systems were taken from the European project e-Highway2050 [35], where five evolving energy scenarios were developed: Fossil and Nuclear, Small and Local, Big Market, Large Scale RES, and100% RES. These scenarios were neither predictions nor forecasts about the future, but were extreme scenarios generated to study their impact on the transmission system. Table 3 shows the percentage of the generation mix given in [35].