Assessing Climate Change Resilience for Electrical Infrastructure

Summary

Physical risks resulting from climate change have been on Manitoba Hydro’s radar since the 1980s.

These risks have the potential to affect our core business in several ways including water supply (generation), infrastructure (transmission, distribution and generation), and energy demand. Managing shorter-term weather-related risk is familiar territory, however, substantial effort has gone into understanding how these risks may evolve in time with the changing climate.

Recently, an internal Climate Change Opportunities Risks and Adaptation Working Group (CCORA) was initiated to more holistically assess climate risks and opportunities across the corporation and to explore potential options to adapt.

Establishment of CCORA has improved internal awareness, connected subject matter experts with climate science information, and facilitated infrastructure-specific climate change resilience assessments.

This presentation provides a brief background on climate change initiatives underway at Manitoba Hydro and a deeper dive into the climate change resilience assessment process following Infrastructure Canada’s Climate Lens.

Topics include the overall risk assessment process, consideration of historic and future probability, confidence in future projections, direct versus systemic risk, lessons learned, and examples for various types of electrical infrastructure.