Outlier Detection in Energy Climate Data
Summary
The energy transition, moving away from fossil fuels to renewable energy
sources, introduces an increasing variability in energy generation. In order
to prepare for the future, signi?cant improvements need to be made to the
energy grid. We investigate the use of outlier detection algorithms to improve
the assessment of future energy systems. Outliers represent critical conditions
that should be taken into consideration by policy makers when designing the
future energy grid. We combine the MDI algorithm and the SLOM algorithm
with novel post-processing to detect temporal and spatial-temporal outliers.
These algorithms are applied to energy generation data derived from ERA5
historical climate reanalysis data using energy conversion models. Using the
MDI algorithm we found temporal outliers that are potential risks for the
energy grid. We found that the application of SLOM, a spatial outlier detec-
tion algorithm, and the post-processing, provided no new insights. Historical
trends that could be attributed to climate change were investigated but not
found. For the historical period we found that outlier intensity might be in
u-
enced by multidecadel variability. We conclude that our method shows that
outlier detection might help the assessment of the future energy grid by high-
lighting the most extreme situations. Researchers and policy makers could
use information on the discovered outliers to improve the future development
of the electricity network.