Abstract
Extreme weather has been front page news over the past winter and their frequency of occurrence and their magnitude could potentially increase in the future due to climate change. The Energy sector, as the whole society, need to bolster its resilience against the consequences of these catastrophic events for protecting the existing infrastructure. Moreover, in the next three decades, the UK will be investing in a wide range of high value, long lived infrastructure assets. EDF Energy, in particular, is likely to be largely involved in the shaping and the design of the new assets. The robust understanding of the full range of natural hazards that need to be considered in the design and assessment of high value energy infrastructure is a key point for EDF Energy as safety has always been a non negotiable priority for the company. In this talk the probabilistic methods for extreme weather characterisation available for the design of high value infrastructures are introduced together with an overview on new R&D exploratory works in this topic.
Biography
Dr. Pietro Bernardara is the Natural Hazard Expert at EDF R&D. He has been employed by EDF R&D since 2007 and leads the Natural Hazard activity development at the EDF Energy R&D UK Centre where his focus is on delivering innovative R&D and developing positive synergies on this domain at the International level of the EDF group. His PhD was on extreme rainfall events and his research interests focus on Natural Hazard (extreme weather, ocean hazard, hydrological risks, and climate change) impact characterization for energy infrastructure, in particular Nuclear and Hydroelectric EDF assets. He is co-author of more than 50 publications in international journal or conferences on these topics. He is involved in scientific networks dealing with Natural Hazard (PURE) and leading the organization of scientific conference on the topic in collaboration with EDF Energy key partners (Met Office) and public bodies (NERC).