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Research activities to cope with wet snow impacts on overhead power lines in current and future climate over Italy

Publications - Paper

Research activities to cope with wet snow impacts on overhead power lines in current and future climate over Italy

Based on 14 EURO-CORDEX simulations at the spatial resolution of 12 km, under the assumption of radiative forcing RCP 8.5, future scenarios were developed to analyze the expected wet snow events on mainland Italy and estimate the impact of ice build-up on the national power grid.

Wet snow events cause serious problems in the safe operation of the Italian power system. Since such phenomena are expected to persist or even exacerbate in the coming decades, there is an urgent need to develop an appropriate Climate Change Resilience Plan for the national power system. Indeed, one important demand of stakeholders and policy makers is the appropriate planning of future power lines, as well as the strengthening of existing lines considering the expected snow loads over Italy in the coming decades. Since current climate information does not allow for the development of an implementation action plan, some projections of expected wet snow in the medium to long term were developed based on state-of-the-art models: 14 EURO-CORDEX simulations at the spatial resolution of 0.11° (about 12 km) with radiative forcing RCP8.5 were used. Wet snow events are expected to decrease considerably in areas currently affected by these phenomena, while they will increase significantly over alpine regions, which are currently free of such events. The results indicate a probable increase in snow loads of about 70-100% in the Alps, especially in the northern and western regions, while, with some confidence, they report a decrease of about 20-40% in the Valpadana. The signal is weaker and with lower confidence for wet snow variations over central and southern Italy (expected to decrease by about 10-20%). The greatest uncertainties concern the northern and central Apennines, where there is almost no signal of change and, therefore, no useful information can be inferred for these areas.

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