ROBINE-AT-Energy: Hourly electricity demand and supply profiles for the historical climate period and for global warming levels of 2 °C, 3 °C, and 4 °C in Austria at the NUTS-3 level

As energy systems increasingly rely on variable renewable energy sources (VRES), their vulnerability to weather conditions grows, leading to greater uncertainty for the future. Climate change further intensifies these challenges by affecting both energy supply and demand. Since the impacts of climate change on energy systems vary regionally, localized climate projections are essential to assess regional risks and opportunities and to develop appropriate adaptation measures. The ROBINE [1]  project aims to address this gap for Austria by providing a data basis to support integrated energy planning in the country.

This dataset contains hourly time series of demand (both weather-dependent and non-weather dependent) and supply components (e.g. wind, photovoltaic and hydro run-of river) for Austria at the NUTS-3 level for the historical period and for Global Warming Levels (GWLs) of 2 °C, 3 °C, and 4 °C. To represent these climate projections, 20-year periods have been identified for each GWL, showing the corresponding global warming signals. The selected years and the corresponding climate models are listed below.

·       Historical Climate period:  1991-2010 (ERA5-Land); for Hydro power (E-HYPE) 

·       GWL-2.0°C: 2013-2032 (ICHEC-EC.EARTH-rcp45-r12i1p1_KNMI-RACMO22E)

·       GWL-3.0°C:  2025-2044 (ICHEC-EC.EARTH-rcp85-r12i1p1_KNMI RACMO22E)

·       GWL-4.0°C: 2051-2070 (ICHEC-EC.EARTH-rcp85-r12i1p1_KNMI RACMO22E)

The underlying meteorological variables are based on the open-source SECURES-Met  [2] dataset, which is described in detail in [3]. This dataset includes meteorological parameters such as temperature, wind speed, hydro inflow, and solar radiation for Europe. Additionally, it provides data at the NUTS-3 level for Austria.

The methodological approach describing the processing these meteorological variables for Energy systems are explained in [4].  The demand profiles (industrial, heating and cooling) are based on regressions developed in the H2020 Hotmaps project [5]. This database includes profiles for  EU-countries at NUTS-2 level, taking into account the weighted average temperature of regions for the year 2010 [5] [6]. We generated NUTS-3 level demand profiles for Austria by combining the corresponding temperature data and NUTS-2 reference profiles to which the respective NUTS-3 [9] regions belong.

We also recommend complementary datasets, ROBINE-AT  [7] for the consideration of climatological hazard indicators in energy system planning, and SECURES-Energy [8] for country-level EU energy system modeling.

Sources

[1]         ‘ROBINE’: Regionsspezifische Impactuntersuchung von Klimawandel für eine robuste und integrale Energieinfrastruktur in Österreich;  Project Description:  [Online]. Available: https://projekte.ffg.at/projekt/4875808  

[2]         H. Formayer et al., ‘SECURES-Met - A European wide meteorological data set suitable for electricity modelling (supply and demand) for historical climate and climate change projections’. Zenodo, Vienna, Austria, May 15, 2023. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.7907883.

[3]         H. Formayer et al., ‘SECURES-Met: A European meteorological data set suitable for electricity modelling applications’, Sci. Data, vol. 10, no. 1, Art. no. 1, Sept. 2023, doi: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-023-02494-4 .

[4]         F. Schöniger et al., The Impact of Climate Change on Electricity Demand and Supply Profiles in Europe Until 2100. 2024. doi: 10.2139/ssrn.4978968.

[5]         S. Pezzutto et al., ‘Hotmaps: D2.3 WP2 Report - Open Data Set for the EU28’, EU Horizion 2020, 2019. Accessed: Mar. 03, 2025. [Online]. Available: https://www.hotmaps-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/D2.3-Hotmaps_for-upload_revised-final_.pdf

[6]         Hotmaps, ‘Hotmaps open data repositories’. Accessed: Nov. 29, 2022. [Online]. Available: https://wiki.hotmaps.eu/en/Hotmaps-open-data-repositories#industry

[7]         P. Maier et al., ‘ROBINE-AT: Climatological hazard indicators for a ROBust and INtegrated Energy infrastructure in AusTria’, Zenodo. [Online]. Available: https://zenodo.org/records/14697703

[8]         F. Schöniger et al., ‘SECURES-Energy: Hourly electricity demand and supply profiles for historical climate and climate change projections in Europe until 2100’. May 14, 2024. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.8355363.

[9]         Nuts Statistical regions of Austria; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUTS_statistical_regions_of_Austria

Data structure

The data includes demand and supply time series at the NUTS-3 level for Austria and is divided into historical data (Historical.zip) and three GWLs (GWL-2, GWL-3, GWL-4.zip).

Production profiles

Demand profiles:

Funding Information: This database was prepared as part of the ROBINE project, which is funded by the Climate and Energy Fund (KLI.EN) and administered by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) under project number FO999905716, as part of the Energy Research Call 2022 (Energieforschung 2022).