Operational water consumption and withdrawal factors for electricity generating technologies: a review of existing literature

Abstract

This report provides estimates of operational water withdrawal and water consumption factors for electricity generating technologies in the United States. Estimates of water factors were collected from published primary literature and were not modified except for unit conversions. The water factors presented may be useful in modeling and policy analyses where reliable power plant level data are not available. Major findings of the report include: water withdrawal and consumption factors vary greatly across and within fuel technologies, and water factors show greater agreement when organized according to cooling technologies as opposed to fuel technologies; a transition to a less carbon-intensive electricity sector could result in either an increase or a decrease in water use, depending on the choice of technologies and cooling systems employed; concentrating solar power technologies and coal facilities with carbon capture and sequestration capabilities have the highest water consumption values when using a recirculating cooling system; and non-thermal renewables, such as photovoltaics and wind, have the lowest water consumption factors. Improved power plant data and further studies into the water requirements of energy technologies in different climatic regions would facilitate greater resolution in analyses of water impacts of future energy and economic scenarios. This report provides the foundation for conducting water use impact assessments of the power sector while also identifying gaps in data that could guide future research.

The Water-Energy-Environment Nexus in the Great Lakes Region: The Case for Integrated Resource Planning

“…The CCS case assumes that both existing (retrofitted) and new coal-fired power plants incur a 30% parasitic energy loss (electricity needed to capture the CO2, compress it and inject underground for long term storage) due to implementation of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), while a 15% loss is associated with natural gas and oil-fired plants (National Energy Technology Laboratory 2009). Associated water use factors were taken from Macknick et al (2012).…”

“…For new power plants this calculation is accomplished by multiplying the production rate by the associated water withdrawal factor and water consumption factor. Each type of plant and its associated cooling technology has a unique water use factor (median values given by Macknick et al, 2012 Kenny et al, 2009;Solley et al, 1995).…”

“…Natural variability in water supply, policies governing water use, and technological evolution are important factors in defining the efficiency of power generation (Macknick et al, 2012). At the same time, these variations in energy sources and their associated technologies impact the quality and quantity of basin water supply, ultimately affecting consumers.…”

Water consumption from hydropower plants – review of published estimates and an assessment of the concept

“…In addition to the primary sources listed in Table 1, a number of publications are considered relevant to this topic and should be mentioned, such as US Department of Energy (2006), Fthenakis and Kim (2010), Macknick et al (2011Macknick et al ( , 2012a, Pfister et al (2011) andIPCC (2012). The IPPC Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources (IPCC, 2012) is definitely the most acclaimed of these publications and uses the following sources as documentation for their estimates of water consumption from hydropower; Gleick (1993), Torcellini et al (2003), Mielke et al (2010), Fthenakis and Kim (2010), indicating that until recently there was extensive re-use of the geographically very limited data set published by Gleick (1993).…”

The Water Demand of Energy: Implications for Sustainable Energy Policy Development

“…For instance, Wilson et al [17] estimated the water footprint of electricity sector in the U.S. and concluded that an average kWh of electricity from different sources in the U.S. in 2009, required almost 42 gallons of water, more than 95 percent of which was gray water footprint, associated with water quality effects of electricity production. Macknick et al [26] reviewed the existing literature on water consumption and withdrawal for the U.S. electricity generating technologies and concluded that solar thermal and coal have the highest water consumption while non-thermal renewables, such as wind and solar photovoltaic, have the lowest water consumption. Meldrum et al [27] reviewed and classified the existing literature of electricity's water withdrawal and water consumption for different energy technologies and concluded that the water used for cooling purposes dominated the life cycle water use of electricity generation.…”