NREL Unveils Groundbreaking Generative Machine Learning Model To Simulate Future Energy-Climate Impacts - CleanTechnicahttps://cleantechnica.com/2024/04/10/nrel-unveils-groundbreaking-generative-machine-learning-model-to-simulate-future-energy-climate-impacts/Sup3rCC is an open-source model that uses generative machine learning to produce state-of-the-art downscaled future climate data sets that are available to the public at no cost. Downscaled climate data is necessary to understand the impacts of climate change on local wind and solar resources and energy demand. There are a multitude of existing downscaling methods, but they all have trade-offs in resolution, computational costs, and physical constraints in space and time. Sup3rCC represents a new field of generative machine learning methods that can produce physically realistic high-resolution data 40 times faster than traditional dynamical downscaling methods.
Sup3rCC will change the way we study and plan future energy systems,” said Dan Bilello, director of the Strategic Energy Analysis Center at NREL. “The tool produces foundational climate data that can be plugged into energy system models and provide much-needed insights for decision makers who are responsible for keeping the lights on.”
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Sup3rCC learns physical characteristics of nature and the atmosphere by studying NREL’s historical high-resolution data sets, including the National Solar Radiation Database and the Wind Integration National Dataset Toolkit. The model then injects physically realistic small-scale information that it has learned from the data sets into the coarse future outputs from global climate models. As a result, Sup3rCC generates highly detailed temperature, humidity, wind speed, and solar irradiance data based on the latest state-of-the-art future climate projections. Sup3rCC outputs can then be used to study future renewable energy power generation, changes in energy demand, and impacts to power system operations. The initial Sup3rCC data set includes data from 2015 to 2059 for the contiguous United States, and additional data sets will be released in the coming years.