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Abstract

This paper investigates how extreme weather conditions affect power generators across Europe, with on the differing vulnerabilities and adaptive responses of hydropower and thermal plants. Using a granular panel dataset of daily power plant outages and local weather conditions (2017-2023), we assess the influence of extreme temperatures, floods, and droughts on outage risks. We distinguish between forced and planned outages to identify how operators anticipate or react to weather-related stress. Our findings show that extreme weather events raise outage risks across multiple technologies, though their responses vary. Sudden such as unexpected temperature extremes, are more likely to trigger unplanned operational failures, planned outages tend to align with longer-term maintenance cycles rather than immediate environmental pressures. These results highlight the need for climate-resilient strategies to protect energy systems growing weather variability.

Keywords

Electricity; Power generation; Outages; Climate change

Published in

Energy Economics
2025, volume: 148, article number: 108549
Publisher: ELSEVIER

SLU Authors

UKÄ Subject classification

Energy Systems
Economics

Publication identifier

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2025.108549

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/142166