Energy Innovation partners with the independent nonprofit Aspen Global Change Institute (AGCI) to provide climate and energy research updates. The research synopsis below comes from AGCI James C. Arnott. A full list of AGCI’s updates is available online at https://www.agci.org/resources?type=research-reviews.

The U.S. Surgeon General recently made a stunning announcement proclaiming a national epidemic of loneliness and isolation. Alongside his pronouncement came a report with a chilling takeaway that lacking social connection can equal the health impacts of smoking 15 cigarettes a day. The report documents alarming trends: loneliness among young people has increased every year since 1976, and Americans across the age spectrum spend 24 hours more per month alone than they did in 2003.

Beyond health impacts, such isolation can erode a community’s capacity to build social capital and cohesion, vital capacities for responding to the shocks of extreme weather and climate-related disasters. Surprisingly, the words “climate” or “climate change” do not appear even once in the Surgeon General’s report, even though it explores wide-ranging implications of and solutions for social isolation, including “natural hazards.” Several recent social science and interdisciplinary studies, however, have started to explore aspects of this connection.

Late last year, two health researchers from the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, André Hajek and Hans-Helmut König, reported an association between climate anxiety and perceived social isolation. They surveyed over 3,000 people living in Germany, using questions designed to test levels of loneliness, isolation, and climate anxiety. Respondents also provided demographic and lifestyle details, such as age, gender, location, and alcohol/smoking habits. When these factors are included, the survey data analysis found an association between climate anxiety and both loneliness and social isolation. Higher levels of loneliness and isolation were significantly associated with higher levels of climate anxiety for the overall population and for those between the ages of 18–64.

Interestingly, the study found no significant association for respondents aged 65–74, and the actual magnitude of association (i.e., effect size), even when statistically significant, was low to moderate. Furthermore, while the study demonstrated a correlation, it was unable to explain whether loneliness breeds climate anxiety, or whether climate anxiety or some other factor may be driving loneliness and isolation.

Even with these limitations, the extent to which climate anxiety might depress action on climate solutions—thereby fueling a vicious, self-perpetuating cycle—raises concerning questions about the broader relationship between social disconnection and environmental action.

Social Connection And Environmental Action

To get at this question, two Australian psychologists, Madelin Duong and Pamela Pensini of Monash University, examined the relationship between connectedness and pro-environmental behavior (PEB)­­––the actions an individual may take to try to minimize or reverse negative impacts on the environment. Their work, which was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, draws on an online survey of 632 Australian adults who self-rated their connectedness to their community, nation, all humanity, and nature. Respondents also answered 22 questions about whether they had performed various kinds of PEBs in the previous six months as well as 10 items aimed at understanding respondents’ underlying orientation toward “prosocial behaviors” (e.g., one item read “Having a lot of money is not important to me.”).

Based on the responses, the authors constructed a statistical model to predict the likelihood of an individual performing PEBs (see Figure 1). They found that prosocial tendencies (described in Figure 1 as “Honesty-Humility”), along with connectedness to nature, community, and humanity, are significant positive predictors of PEB; that is, the more self-reported feeling of connectedness, the higher probability a respondent would have reported PEBs. Connectedness to nature was the largest positive predictor, but connectedness to community was also significant. Interestingly, connectedness to nation was shown to be a negative predictor, even though it was positively associated with prosocial behavior.

This study reinforces an intuition many environmental advocates may already hold––that a meaningful connection to community or nature provides individuals a compelling sense of relevance or motivation to act. The survey results suggest that connection to one’s nation may not actually facilitate, or could even hinder, PEB. While these interpretations are interesting, the study design and context mainly construct a framework of PEB that requires further testing beyond the confines of a single online survey in one country.

Social Factors That Shape Climate Vulnerability

How individuals are connected to their community and the attributes of community cohesion also affect how people are impacted by natural, or increasingly human-made, climate disasters. A recent U.S. multi-author study in Environment International led by P. Grace Tee Lewis of Environmental Defense Fund makes explicit the social and community factors that shape widely varying levels of climate vulnerabilities in the United States. Creating a “Climate Vulnerability Index” (CVI), the authors build on efforts dating back to a landmark 2003 paper led by Susan Cutter, which first attempted to map the social factors contributing to environmental hazard vulnerability (Cutter, Boruff, & Shirley, 2003). That paper created the first ever Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI), which explicitly considered how variables like socioeconomic status, family structure, and local infrastructure shape how communities experience the physical impacts of a disaster.

Tee Lewis and colleagues draw upon an updated version of the SoVI and numerous other datasets to formulate their CVI, which is intended to help pinpoint, down to the census tract level, opportunities for investing in historically low-income communities, such as through the Biden administration’s Justice40 initiative, which prioritizes such regions to receive at least 40% of the benefits of federal climate and clean energy investments.

The CVI incorporates 200 health, socioeconomic, infrastructure, and climate risk variables, including some specifically related to social connectedness, such as the number of civic and social organizations in a community and self-reported mental health. When these factors are incorporated, even areas that expect relatively lower physical impacts from climate change, such as many parts of Alaska, can still experience harm based on their baseline vulnerabilities.

Integrated geospatial datasets like the CVI are limited by relying solely on datasets that can be uniformly applied (and even then, this study relies on sparse data for Alaska and Hawaii). But the CVI can help pinpoint potential social drivers of vulnerability in a specific context and thus inform more tailored capacity-building actions. For instance, a look into the top three most vulnerable census tracts of Harris County (encompassing Houston, Texas) express similarly high levels of climate variability but owe their vulnerability to different combinations of health, socioeconomic, and climatic stressors (Figure 3).

Advancing Connection

Several recent studies featured here suggest that the impacts of loneliness and social disconnection may have direct relevance for our individual perceptions and actions on climate change. Yet there are real limitations to how we measure, collect, and analyze this information to draw conclusions. These studies simply provide a starting point to consider how we might link concern about loneliness and isolation, among other social variables, to climate action.

Doing so provides a real opportunity to consider the many opportunities for multi-solving, where one strategy or a combination of strategies simultaneously address multiple problems. Whether aimed at coinciding root causes or solutions with multiple co-benefits, multi-solving may reveal novel configurations of ideas or interest groups, or new ways to deploy solutions more efficiently. In the case of social disconnection amid a climate crisis, for instance, a philanthropist who wants to help restore local community vitality could consider how such an interest might dovetail with local pro-climate solutions.

The Surgeon General’s report identifies six pillars to advance social connection:

Strengthen social infrastructure in local communities
Enact pro-connection public policies
Mobilize the health sector
Reform digital environments
Deepen our knowledge
Cultivate a culture of connection

Taken at face value, these provide many jumping off points to explore what kinds of resilient, well-informed, and wellbeing-enhancing climate solutions could also help restore connection and cohesion within our nation’s communities.

Featured Research

Cutter, S., Boruff, B., & Shirley, W. (2003). Social Vulnerability to Environmental Hazards. Social Science Quarterly, 84(2). Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1540-6237.8402002/full

Duong, M., & Pensini, P. (2023). The role of connectedness in sustainable behaviour: A parallel mediation model examining the prosocial foundations of pro-environmental behaviour. Personality and Individual Differences, 209(March), 112216. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2023.112216

Hajek, A., & König, H. H. (2022). Climate Anxiety, Loneliness and Perceived Social Isolation. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(22). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192214991

Tee Lewis, P. G., Chiu, W. A., Nasser, E., Proville, J., Barone, A., Danforth, C., … Craft, E. (2023). Characterizing vulnerabilities to climate change across the United States. Environment International, 172(November 2022), 107772. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2023.107772

The post Loneliness, Isolation, And Climate Solutions: Is There A Connection? appeared first on Energy Innovation: Policy and Technology.

Energy Innovation partners with the independent nonprofit Aspen Global Change Institute (AGCI) to provide climate and energy research updates. The research synopsis below comes from AGCI James C. Arnott. A full list of AGCI’s updates is available online at https://www.agci.org/resources?type=research-reviews. The…
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This article is the first in a series entitled “Real Talk on Reliability,” which will examine the reliability needs of our grid as we move toward 100% clean electricity and electrify more end-uses on the path to a climate stable future. It was written by Michelle Solomon, a senior policy analyst in the Electricity Program at Energy Innovation.

The beginning of summer brings with it sunshine and vacations for many, but increasingly these warm months are accompanied by extreme heat, a symptom exacerbated by climate change. As a result of widespread heat-waves, people and businesses crank their air conditioners for relief, increasing electricity demand and adding stress to the grid. At the same time, this electricity is getting cleaner – in 2022 the United States generated 40 percent of its electricity from carbon-free sources. Fifteen percent was generated from wind and solar energy, both of which are now the cheapest sources of electricity, and the fastest growing.

To help prepare the nation’s electricity grid for the season ahead, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) —the non-profit regulatory authority whose mission is to assure the effective and efficient reduction of risks to the reliability and security of the North American grids—recently released its annual summer reliability assessment.

Their report examined both the United States and Canada’s ability to meet expected summer electricity demand, including an evaluation of the risks associated with wildfires and drought, and provided short-term recommendations on how to overcome any potential shortfalls.

NERC’s findings follow a trend of the last several years, highlighting that while electricity supply is sufficient across the country under normal summer conditions, during extreme heat several regions are at risk for supply shortfalls. NERC cited the retirement of aging and expensive fossil fuel power plants as a factor in this dynamic, but also found that “increased and rapid deployment of wind, solar, and batteries make a positive difference this year,” highlighting that one of the most important tools bolstering reliability is adding new, clean generation capacity.

As we move toward a cleaner electricity system, reliability is of increasing focus for policymakers, utilities, system operators, and electricity consumers alike, and for good reason – lives depend on the power staying on.

Changing reliability considerations with the energy transition

Our grid is undeniably in transition. The shift to clean electricity and electric end-uses is picking up pace in response to federal policy and incentives, state clean energy goals, and utility leadership. In 2022 wind and solar accounted for 74 percent of new utility-scale generating capacity, while new natural gas capacity made up only 25 percent. Battery storage has also seen a meteoric rise with the addition of 4 gigawatts (GW) across the country last year in a near doubling of storage capacity. This fast-growing addition of renewables and storage is welcome as electricity demand increases and uneconomic fossil fuel plants retire. Other demand-side resources and operational changes are also in the toolbox as grid operators work quickly to manage the transition without impacting grid reliability, safety, and affordability.

With all of these changes to the physical system, we need to also evolve the way we think about reliability. Ric O’Connell, Executive Director of GridLab, highlights that one of the biggest misconceptions in the energy transition is the need for baseload power, or plants that are expensive to build but cheap to operate and therefore run almost all the time. O’Connell explains that “we know we need a portfolio of resources on the grid that, working together, can provide resource adequacy, or energy when we need it, but that portfolio does not necessarily need to include baseload or 24/7 resources.”

While the shift to this new paradigm presents challenges, we are gaining confidence in the reliability of a clean grid. Previously there was “trepidation about even adding small amounts of weather-dependent power sources like wind and solar to the grid,” said O’Connell. “Now, large, sophisticated grids in the Midwest, Texas, and California regularly run on a 70 percent or higher share of wind and solar for hours at a time.” We have proven examples of smaller grids running at even higher percentages of weather dependent resources – the island of Kauai has been able to run on 100 percent renewable energy for at least nine hours at a time. Multiple studies show that the U.S. grid can run on up to 80 percent clean electricity with technology that is available today.

To build this portfolio, utilities, regulators, and grid operators will need to be able to accurately evaluate each resource’s contribution to resource adequacy and operational reliability. As Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner Allison Clements recently said, “Reliability discussions will lead to the more cost-effective solutions if they start with the data-driven analytical work required to understand and quantify the problem that we are aiming to solve.”

The nuts and bolts of reliability

While the grid shifts from a still fossil-heavy system to one that is powered by clean, carbon-free electricity generation, there are three questions we need to answer. First: can a clean, carbon-free grid offer the same or better reliability we have today? Second: can the grid be reliable as we are transitioning? And third: can a clean grid meet the demand from more electrified end-uses without compromising reliability? This series will aim to demonstrate that the answer to these questions is “yes”, but not without the correct planning and policies in place.

Before answering the above questions, it’s helpful to understand the basics of electricity reliability—a term used often, but not always consistently. There are four separate but interconnected pieces to ensuring that power from the grid is reliable. First is resource adequacy, which means having enough energy to meet demand—either in the form of supply-side generation or demand-side distributed resources. Second is reliable operation of the grid, including generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity—the monitoring and control of the system, balancing energy supply to match the demand and ensuring transmission lines and facilities stay within their safe operating limits. Third is resilience, which is the ability of the electricity system and other connected systems – like transportation, health, and safety – to ride-through or bounce back quickly in the face of outages. Connected to resilience is grid hardening, which refers to a myriad technology and operational solutions that help the grid withstand these major events without disruption.

Reliability is a characteristic of the whole electricity system, to which individual resources contribute. Every source of electricity has different characteristics that should complement each other in a balanced portfolio. With respect to resource adequacy, no resource is available 100 percent of the time. For example, solar and wind output vary over the course of the day, year, and with weather conditions, where batteries and transmission and distribution (T&D) lines move energy from when and where it is generated to when and where it is needed. Large-scale nuclear plants are built to provide consistent power but are difficult to ramp up or down to adjust supply when needed. Gas and coal plants are typically considered “dispatchable” or available on demand, but can suffer outages, particularly correlated outages in extreme weather events as seen by recent Winter Storms Uri and Elliott. Maintaining a reliable grid requires valuing every resource’s contribution accurately, and building a generation portfolio that balances supply and demand throughout the day and year.

When electricity supply and demand are matched, the electricity flows through the grid at a constant frequency and voltage but as supply and demand vary throughout the day, frequency and voltage can begin to fluctuate. Grid services are the contributions that different resources provide to maintain stability such as frequency response, voltage regulation, and more. Historically, spinning turbines powered by gas, coal, and nuclear helped ensure stability, though new solutions can compete to fill this role as public acceptance, policy, finance, and economics push conventional resources to retire. The ability of wind, solar, and batteries to provide grid services compared to spinning turbines is detailed in the below figure from Milligan Grid Solutions.

NERC, electricity providers, regulators, and system operators share responsibility for each aspect of reliability. NERC assesses national resource adequacy, sets operational reliability standards, monitors compliance with those standards, and can penalize non-compliant reliability authorities. Electricity providers plan their future resource mix and in the West and Southeast operate their bulk power systems.

In order to maintain reliability and ensure the transition goes as smoothly as possible, policymakers will need to remove barriers to building new, clean resources and connecting them to the grid. With nearly double the current U.S. generating capacity just waiting in interconnection queues across the country, new transmission lines are the “biggest barrier to adding sufficient new clean energy,” according to O’Connell, and “policy plays a critical role in how we plan, permit, and pay for transmission. Good policy means we can get the transmission built in the timeframe we need, so clean energy can come online and maintain reliability.” Additional Federal leadership is essential, but while the recent debt negotiations considered several transmission reform policies, the ultimate outcome lacked substantive action. Distribution system upgrades needed to support more electrified end-uses, such as heat pumps and electric vehicles, can also be hindered by regulatory and utility processes if they aren’t anticipated.

A clean, reliable grid capable of supporting mutual goals of decarbonization and electrification is possible, but it won’t happen on its own. The rest of this series will cover deep dives on key topics in grid reliability including: the future of reliability services with clean energy, supply- and demand-side approaches to keeping the grid reliable, the impacts of extreme weather and climate change, and the need for clean, firm power.

The post It’s Time To Rethink Grid Reliability appeared first on Energy Innovation: Policy and Technology.

This article is the first in a series entitled “Real Talk on Reliability,” which will examine the reliability needs of our grid as we move toward 100% clean electricity and electrify more end-uses on the path to a climate stable…
The post It’s Time To Rethink Grid Reliability appeared first on Energy Innovation: Policy and Technology.[#item_full_content]