Sister climate cities, utility data predict future water, electricity demands

Renee Obringer, assistant professor of energy and mineral engineering at Penn State, led an international team of researchers that used utilities data and climate analogs — contemporary cities with climates close to what other cities are predicted to experience in the future — to assess how climate change may impact residential water and electricity use across 46 cities in the United States. Their computationally efficient model projected strong regional differences for future water and electricity demand, with some cities possibly experiencing increases in summer water and electricity demand of up to 15% and 20%, respectively, because of climate change.