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Global Renewable Energy Infrastructure Resilience Under Climate Risks
Jingke Hong1, Yang Chen2, Wen Yi2
1School of Management Science and Real Estate, Chongqing University, Chongqing, China.
Summary
Global climate risks damage renewable energy infrastructure (REI). Resilience and disaster patterns influence impacts and recovery, crucial for energy transitions and disaster governance.
Area of Science:
- Climate Science
- Energy Economics
- Environmental Policy
Background:
- Global climate risks increasingly threaten renewable energy infrastructure (REI).
- Limited evidence exists on heterogeneous impacts, resilience moderating roles, and post-disaster recovery patterns of climate risks on REI.
- Understanding these factors is critical for guiding resilient energy transitions and informing disaster risk governance.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the heterogeneous impacts of climate risks on renewable energy infrastructure (REI) across countries.
- To examine the moderating role of REI resilience on climate risk impacts.
- To analyze post-disaster recovery patterns of REI under varying resilience capacities.
Main Methods:
- Dynamic panel models were employed for analysis.
- Data spanned 215 countries and regions from 2004 to 2022.
- Analysis considered disaster frequency, duration, renewable energy generation share, and different types of resilience (economic, social, institutional).
Main Results:
- Climate risk significantly damages global REI, with disaster frequency and institutional resilience showing mitigation effects.
- Damage patterns vary with disaster frequency (inverted U-shape) and duration (N-shape).
- Increasing renewable energy generation share intensifies damage through four severe stages.
- Economic resilience shows "Creative destruction" in developed nations and "Build back better" in poorer countries.
- Social resilience generally worsens damage, but high disaster frequency and institutional resilience can facilitate "Recovery to trend" in socially advanced nations.
- South America is most affected, followed by Asia and Africa; Europe is least impacted.
- Wind energy is most vulnerable, followed by bioenergy, solar, and hydropower.
Conclusions:
- Climate risks pose significant threats to global REI, necessitating tailored resilience strategies.
- Heterogeneous impacts and recovery patterns highlight the need for context-specific disaster risk governance.
- Promoting institutional and economic resilience is key to mitigating climate risks and ensuring sustainable energy transitions.
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