Europe’s ‘Destination Earth’ to deliver climate data for energy planning

The Destination Earth initiative has launched with the prospect of becoming a key input for the increasingly important climate data into planning in the energy sector among others.

Destination Earth (DestinE), named a ‘flagship initiative’ of the European Commission, is aimed to develop a highly accurate and detailed digital twin of the Earth for use to monitor, model and predict the climate and other natural phenomena and their interaction with human activities.

With this, it is intended to enable Europe to be better prepared to respond to major natural disasters and adapt to climate change as well as assess the potential socioeconomic and policy impacts of such events.

“The launch of the initial DestinE is a true game changer in our fight against climate change,” said Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President for a Europe Fit for the Digital Age, at the launch.

Have you read?
Space data increasingly important for smart grid – EUSPA
RESPONDENT – harnessing space data for renewables integration and smart grids

“It means that we can observe environmental challenges which can help us predict future scenarios – like we have never done before.”

Destination Earth was initiated in 2022 in partnership with the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), European Space Agency (ESA) and European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT).

At its basis is Europe’s developing network of high-performance computers and AI capacity, with initial work up to the formal launch focussed on developing the basic components.

These include the DestinE platform with services, tools and applications, the ‘data lake’ bringing together diverse space-based and other datasets and the digital twin engine for the creation of digital twins of different aspects of the Earth system.

The first two digital twins, which have been demonstrated, are on weather-induced extremes and climate change adaption.

Further enhancement of the DestinE system and the integration of additional digital twins and services are planned to take place in the years ahead with the prospect of the full Earth replica being completed by 2030.

Energy sector planning

Speaking in the ‘Energy security’ session at the EU Sustainable Energy Week, Vincent-Henri Peuch, Director for Engagement with the EU at the ECMWF, highlighted the role of Europe’s weather and climate data in energy security and in particular that from the Copernicus programme with its ‘energy hub’ – currently in beta format – and that to come from the Destination Earth programme.

There are currently more than 300,000 users of the Copernicus data, primarily for energy applications and commonly for 4D reanalysis (i.e. 3D mapping over time) dating back to the 1940s, he commented.

“Common applications include solar radiation monitoring,” he said citing as an example IRENA having used the data for wind and solar resource assessment in Africa, while another user is ENTSO-E for its resource adequacy assessment.

“The DestinE programme will take climate projection to a new level with its spatial resolution and better estimates through improvements in modelling – it is putting current climate modelling on steroids.”

Peuch’s comments on the need for weather and climate data in the energy sector were echoed by other speakers in the session.

For example, Marion Schroedter-Homscheidt, Energy Meteorology lead at the German Aerospace Centre, highlighted how climate scenario modelling had addressed the concern of a lack of wind and sun at the same time.

“We needed to take a synoptic view over a wide area to show there is no fear of no wind-no sun conditions across Europe,“ she said.

This data in turn can be used for grid planning, she said, adding: ”We need to be prepared for all weather situations that can impact the energy system – also for natural hazards such as flooding.”

Laurent Dubus, Senior Scientist in weather and climate at the French TSO RTE, commented on the increasing exposure of the electricity system to the weather and climate.

On the one hand is the changing demand profile, with increasing temperatures potentially leading to a lowering in winter and increasing in summer, and on the other is the increase in wind and solar generation.

“These will expose the system to new risks and make it more dependent on climate variability at different scales.”

He also noted that satellite imagery is being used increasingly in future forecasting and that ENTSO-E is collaborating with the Copernicus climate change service to develop a new database on the past and future climate for use by the organisation and its members for planning studies and for example from 2025 in the next resource adequacy assessment and ten-year network development plan.

“This is a big step forward as up until now these studies were using past data but now will be able to include future climate projections.”