Climate Exchange

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nergy

ones) more easily. It is our intention at EDF to develop a common

platform with climatic information and datasets to share data and

practices among the different directions and subsidiaries. This initi-

ative, called Pact Energy, could be enormously facilitated by the

development of climate services in the previously described way.

Efforts like those done in the framework of the European WATCH

project (water for utilities: climate change impacts on water quality

and water availability for utilities in Europe), to make forcing and

driving datasets available for hydrological and water thermal studies,

are very welcome. But such initiatives should get a more perennial

status. At the French national level, a new website called Drias: les

futurs du climat has recently been launched. It is designed to answer

the needs of the French practitioners and impact scientist communi-

ties by providing information on climate models and climate science

and an access to raw and bias-corrected climate results. Even though

the geographical coverage of these results is still limited to conti-

nental France, it is an important step toward useful climate services

and appreciable progress in the access to climate science results.

Following this movement toward climate services, different initia-

tives are taking shape, such as the recent climate Knowledge and

Innovation Consortium (Climate KiC) launched by the European

Commission. In this framework, projects involve climate scientists

and people from the industry around important impact and adapta-

tion issues, such as the E3P (Extreme Events and Energy Providers)

project. Similar projects exist at the national level as well.

The links between weather, climate and the energy industry have

also been focused in international conferences in recent years.

If the first of these were specialized sessions during conferences

organized by industry-specific organizations related to wind energy

(such as the American Wind Energy Association), solar energy

(such as SolarPACES) and meteorology (such as the European

Meteorological Society), the first International Conference, Energy

and Meteorology

provided a dedicated forum where people from

both fields could discuss recent research findings and

emerging practices, ranging from operational activities

to long-term investment planning and policy-making.

All these initiatives enable us to be optimistic regard-

ing the coming facilitation of impact studies, and thus

of an easier consideration of climate change in the

strategy and development plans of the energy indus-

try, for which weather and climate issues are crucial.

Progress in science and knowledge on its own is

not sufficient to increase the value of weather and

climate forecasts for any sector. This value can be

increased in three ways:

by an increase in the quality

of weather and climate information on the providers’

side, by an improvement in communication between

providers and users, and by an improvement in the

decision-making processes on the users’ side. The

three components can be improved separately, but the

whole process will be more efficient if the whole chain

is improved. This can be achieved only if an active

collaboration exists between the parties. Although

state-of-the-art scientific knowledge may put some

limitations on possible developments, it remains that

users’ needs should be taken into account upstream,

and then considered in an iterative process. This basic

statement should be considered carefully when devel-

oping climate services, in particular in the Global

Framework for Climate Services.

Further communication, collaboration and part-

nerships between NMHSs and energy companies are

therefore essential. This should allow us to develop

better answers to operational needs, but also to add

extra value to products provided by weather services.

Finally, it will be beneficial to society as a whole.

Installation of solar panels

Small wind turbine at SEPEN (Site Experimental pour le Petit

Eolien de Narbonne), located at domaine de Montplaisir