2018’s Hemispheric Heat Wave Wasn't Possible Without Climate Change, Scientists Say

As temperatures spiked across a large part of the Northern Hemisphere last summer, I got an alarming call from my mother, who was living in Linz, Austria. She was dizzy and disoriented, and she hadn't been sleeping.

Eduardo Velev cools off in the spray of a fire hydrant in
Philadelphia during a July 2018 heat wave. Scientists say
 last summer's extreme heat across the Northern Hemisphere
 wouldn’t have happened without human-induced climate change.

The region had been suffering through several weeks of above average day and nighttime temperatures, and when I arrived, her apartment building felt like a concrete oven. Her symptoms sounded like heat exhaustion.

We helped her pack a bag, checked on an elderly neighbor with similar symptoms, and then left the sweltering city for a mountain lake like we were first-world climate refugees.

A study presented this week at a scientific conference in Vienna now shows that last summer's extreme heat was an "unprecedented" hemispheric event that would not have happened without heat-trapping greenhouse gas pollution, the researchers said, and that it lasted longer and was more widespread across the Northern Hemisphere than previously realized.

Read the story from Inside Climate News by Bob Berwyn - “2018’s Hemispheric Heat Wave Wasn't Possible Without Climate Change, Scientists Say.”

How utilities can deal with the threat of community energy

Community energy is the next big threat to utility companies – unless they manage to become part of this emerging energy economy. They still have a window of opportunity, says Craig Cavanaugh of software services company Omnetric Group, who spent six months researching the energy community market in Europe and the US. He sees three main opportunities for utilities: they can become “collaborative partner”, “community energy service provider” or “community energy platform provider”. In all cases technology is the key. “If utilities don’t move, communities will act on their own”.

“Community Energy is potentially one of the most important forces to disrupt the energy system”, says Craig Cavanaugh, CEO for the Americas of Omnetric Group, a joint-venture of Accenture and Siemens which provides technology solutions to the energy market. Cavanaugh and his team spent the past six months on research, and held interviews with community energy leaders and utility executives in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and USA. They published their findings on 17 November in a white paper ‘Power to the People’.

Technological developments, for example in microgrids and blockchain technology, are quickly making it possible for communities – which could be consumer groups, businesses, or local governments – to engage in common projects for generation, distribution, management and consumption of energy.

Read the EnergyPost story - “How utilities can deal with the threat of community energy.”