Impacts of climate change on European critical infrastructures: The case of the power sector

Climate change induces various direct and indirect impacts. Among the direct effects are the likely rise in the frequency of heat waves and droughts in Europe. These immediate effects of climate change, in turn, cause downstream effects. Drought-induced water scarcity and lack in water supply affect further sectors and critical infrastructures. A lack in water supply for cooling purposes, for example, will negatively affect the electricity generation in power plants. In this paper we analyze the consequences of climate-change related impacts on such interplays between climate-change affected sectors. More specifically, we investigate how electricity exchanges between countries in Europe are affected and threatened by climate change because of the higher risk of water supply shortages due to more frequent drought and heat-wave incidences. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.