Climate change and electricity demand in California

The potential effect of climate change on California’s electric power system is an issue of growing interest and importance to the state’s policy makers. Climate change-induced temperature increases may exacerbate existing stresses on this system. Detailed recent data are used to estimate the relationships between temperature and both electricity consumption and peak demand at a sample of locations around California. These results are combined with new projections of regional climate change affecting California obtained by statistically downscaling recent global projections generated by two general circulation models, to yield estimates of potential impacts of future temperature changes on electricity consumption and peak demand, and illustrative economic cost estimates in several cases. Both current and prospective coping strategies, and priorities for further research, are summarized.