Articles | Volume 25, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-25-843-2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-25-843-2025
Research article
 | 
25 Feb 2025
Research article |  | 25 Feb 2025

Compound winter low-wind and cold events impacting the French electricity system: observed evolution and role of large-scale circulation

François Collet, Margot Bador, Julien Boé, Laurent Dubus, and Bénédicte Jourdier

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Cited articles

Añel, J., Fernández-González, M., Labandeira, X., López-Otero, X., and De La Torre, L.: Impact of Cold Waves and Heat Waves on the Energy Production Sector, Atmosphere, 8, 209, https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos8110209, 2017. 
Bevacqua, E., Suarez-Gutierrez, L., Jézéquel, A., Lehner, F., Vrac, M., Yiou, P., and Zscheischler, J.: Advancing research on compound weather and climate events via large ensemble model simulations, Nat. Commun., 14, 2145, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-37847-5, 2023. 
Bloomfield, H. C., Brayshaw, D. J., and Charlton-Perez, A. J.: Characterizing the winter meteorological drivers of the European electricity system using targeted circulation types, Meteorol. Appl., 27, e1858, https://doi.org/10.1002/met.1858, 2020. 
Bloomfield, H. C., Brayshaw, D. J., Deakin, M., and Greenwood, D.: Hourly historical and near-future weather and climate variables for energy system modelling, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 14, 2749–2766, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-2749-2022, 2022. 
Boé, J., Mass, A., and Deman, J.: A simple hybrid statistical–dynamical downscaling method for emulating regional climate models over Western Europe. Evaluation, application, and role of added value?, Clim. Dynam., 61, 271–294, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-022-06552-2, 2023. 
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Short summary
Our aim is to characterize the observed evolution of compound winter low-wind and cold events impacting the French electricity system. The frequency of compound events exhibits a decrease over the 1950–2022 period, which is likely due to a decrease in cold days. Large-scale atmospheric circulation is an important driver of compound event occurrence and has likely contributed to the decrease in cold days, while we cannot draw conclusions on its influence on the decrease in compound events.
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