Climate change impacts on portuguese energy system in 2050

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para a obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia do Ambiente, perfil Gestão e Sistemas Ambientais

Significant work has been developed in defining climate change impacts, adaptation and mitigation measures both on national and worldwide scopes. In the published literature, strong references are made linking effects of mitigation and adaptation and how the two can counteract, but there is still a lack of integrated assessment of these issues. Using the optimization model TIMES_PT, calibrated and validated for Portugal, interactions between climate change, mitigation strategies, adaptation and the energy system are evaluated in this thesis. A special focus is addressed on two sectors where climate change effects are the most noticeable: hydroelectric production and energy demand. Results indicate that it is wise and cost-effective to delay the investment in new hydropower infrastructure beyond 2020 and that hydropower installed capacity could be reduced in 15% in 2050 when compared with the scenario with no climate change. Furthermore, large hydropower capacity could compromise the deployment of advanced electricity production technologies. Overall,the energy system will benefit from climate change due to useful energy demand reduction, reaching accumulated savings from 4500M€2000 to 6100M€2000 compared to the no climate change scenario.