Impact of climate change on overhead lines operated using dynamic rating in a smart gird

Smart grid technologies which include meteorological sensors provide the possibility to maximize overhead line capacity with the use of dynamic ratings. The benefit of dynamic ratings is significant yet dependent on weather conditions. Given that it is increasingly certain that we are locked into a future where climate change will become significant, it is possible that the advantage of dynamic ratings will be compromised in the future. This paper investigates the impact of climate change on overhead lines operated using dynamic ratings in the UK power system. In the proposed approach, the future weather information of UK is generated from a range of climate models on the basis of a range of emission scenarios. It is then used as the input to an overhead line thermal model to predict overhead line dynamic ratings. The study examines an overhead line located in Slough and a reduction in average ratings of less than 5.52% at different probability levels is shown. This indicates that the dynamic rating will mitigate the impact of climate change in the future when compared against a static rating reduction of 14%.