title: The impact of climate change on photovoltaic power generation in Europe.
abstract: Ambitious climate change mitigation plans call for a significant increase in the use of renewables, which could, however, make the supply system more vulnerable to climate variability and changes. Here we evaluate climate change impacts on solar photovoltaic (PV) power in Europe using the recent EURO-CORDEX ensemble of high-resolution climate projections together with a PV power production model and assuming a well-developed European PV power fleet. Results indicate that the alteration of solar PV supply by the end of this century compared with the estimations made under current climate conditions should be in the range (-14%;+2%), with the largest decreases in Northern countries. Temporal stability of power generation does not appear as strongly affected in future climate scenarios either, even showing a slight positive trend in Southern countries. Therefore, despite small decreases in production expected in some parts of Europe, climate change is unlikely to threaten the European PV sector.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Murcia, 30100 Murcia, Spain.
authors.forename: Sonia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jerez
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement (LSCE), IPSL, CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, 91191 Gif sur Yvette, France.
authors.forename: Isabelle
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Tobin
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement (LSCE), IPSL, CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, 91191 Gif sur Yvette, France.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Vautard
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Murcia, 30100 Murcia, Spain.
authors.forename: Juan Pedro
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Montávez
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Murcia, 30100 Murcia, Spain.
authors.forename: Jose María
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: López-Romero
authors.affiliation: Institut de Technico-Economie des Systèmes Energétiques (I-Tésé), CEA/DEN/DANS, 91191 Gif sur Yvette, France.
authors.forename: Françoise
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Thais
authors.affiliation: Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, CH-8092 Zurich, Switzerland.|Department of Hungarian Geography, Babes-Bolyai University, 400006 Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
authors.forename: Blanka
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Bartok
authors.affiliation: Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark.
authors.forename: Ole Bøssing
authors.initials: OB
authors.lastname: Christensen
authors.affiliation: Institut National de l'Environnement Industriel et des Risques (INERIS), 60550 Verneuil en Halatte, France.
authors.forename: Augustin
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Colette
authors.affiliation: Météo-France/CNRM, CNRS/GAME, 31057 Toulouse, France.
authors.forename: Michel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Déqué
authors.affiliation: Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI), SE-601 76 Norrköping, Sweden.
authors.forename: Grigory
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Nikulin
authors.affiliation: Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, CH-8092 Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Sven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kotlarski
authors.affiliation: Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), 3731 GA De Bilt, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Erik
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: van Meijgaard
authors.affiliation: Climate Service Center Germany (GERICS), D-20095 Hamburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Claas
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Teichmann
authors.affiliation: Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, CH-8092 Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wild