Tropical cyclone risk to global electricity supply

Fred Thomas , Yu Mo, Jianan Rui, Tom Russell, Max Robertson, Jasper Verschuur, Raghav Pant, Jim Hall

To analyse the risks from Tropical Cyclones (TC) to electricity supply, we have combined a large ensemble of TC simulations with a spatial model of power networks and people served, for the entire TC belt globally. The model of electricity power failure, measured in terms of population disrupted, was calibrated against nighttime lights satellite imagery of historic TC events. Use of spatially coherent TC simulations enabled the calculation of electricity supply losses at national, regional and global scales for a range of return periods. We estimate that between 65 and 80 million people lose electric power with a return period of 1 in 100 years, depending on the TC model. Most regions show a worsening of TC-induced outages under climate change (RCP8.5 2050), except for the North Indian Ocean, where there is disagreement between TC models. Climate model uncertainty (across four GCMs) influences the estimated global population at risk by a factor of 0.91-1.05 in 2050.