Contribution of Water and Wastewater Infrastructures to Urban Energy Metabolism and Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Cities in India

Miller, Leslie A.; Ramaswami, A.; Ranjan, Ravi

doi:10.1061/(asce)ee.1943-7870.0000661

Cited by 39 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 11 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…They also found that there was a clear correlation between the electricity consumption and operating capacity of the plants [72]. The reported average energy intensity in India was lower than that in the UK (0.46 kWh/m 3 ) [72], owing to the preference for low-energy requirement technologies such as upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactors [68] or use solar heat for sludge drying [72] in India. Providing treated water and disposing of wastewater in the USA represents an approximate average of 3% of total energy use but could be as high as 20% (e.g., in California).…”

Section: Energy Implications Of Wastewater Treatment Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water-energy nexus for urban water systems: A comparative review on energy intensity and environmental impacts in relation to global water risks

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

• This study quantifies the nexus as energy intensity and greenhouse gas potential.• Baseline water stress and return flow ratio are identified as water risks.• Source water accessibility significantly contributes to variations in the nexus.• Water risks have little impact on the nexus of wastewater systems.• Study on the nexus is suggested to be conducted at regional levels. A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C TThe importance of the interdependence between water and energy, also known as the water-energy nexus, is well recognized. The water-energy nexus is typically characterized in resource use efficiency terms such as energy intensity. This study aims to explore the quantitative results of the nexus in terms of energy intensity and environmental impacts (mainly greenhouse gas emissions) on existing water systems within urban water cycles. We also characterized the influence of water risks on the water-energy nexus, including baseline water stress (a water quantity indicator) and return flow ratio (a water quality indicator). For the 20 regions and 4 countries surveyed (including regions with low to extremely high water risks that are geographically located in Africa, Australia, Asia, Europe, and North America), their energy intensities were positively related to the water risks. Regions with higher water risks were observed to have relatively higher energy and GHG intensities associated with their water supply systems. This mainly reflected the major influence of source water accessibility on the nexus, particularly for regions requiring energy-intensive imported or groundwater supplies, or desalination. Regions that use tertiary treatment (for water reclamation or environmental protection) for their wastewater treatment systems also had relatively higher energy and GHG emission intensities, but the intensities seemed to be independent from the water risks. On-site energy recovery (e.g., biogas or waste heat) in the wastewater treatment systems offered a great opportunity for reducing overall energy demand and its associated environmental impacts. Future policy making for the water and energy sectors should carefully consider the waterenergy nexus at the regional or local level to achieve maximum environmental and economic benefits. The results from this study can provide a better understanding of the water-energy nexus and informative recommendations for future policy directions for the effective management of water and energy.

show abstract

Section: Energy Implications Of Wastewater Treatment Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water-energy nexus for urban water systems: A comparative review on energy intensity and environmental impacts in relation to global water risks

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Transportation data can be patchy, and some data, such as water use, may not be metered at all. Given the difficulty of obtaining parcel data, regional economic data, and other data that can help quantify regional flows specifically, UM analyses in the United States are often developed at the whole city level, downscaled from national‐ or state‐level aggregate data, or modeled (Huang and Chen ; Miller et al ). Detailed (i.e., parcel‐level) data can enable detailed analyses across building types in a city, or by building use, by census characteristics, by industry using the National American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes (the standard used by federal statistical agencies in classifying industries), or other types of categories and spatial scales.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enabling Future Sustainability Transitions

Pincetl

Chester²,

Circella

et al. 2014

J of Industrial Ecology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Summary This synthesis article presents an overview of an urban metabolism (UM) approach using mixed methods and multiple sources of data for Los Angeles, California. We examine electric energy use in buildings and greenhouse gas emissions from electricity, and calculate embedded infrastructure life cycle effects, water use and solid waste streams in an attempt to better understand the urban flows and sinks in the Los Angeles region (city and county). This quantification is being conducted to help policy‐makers better target energy conservation and efficiency programs, pinpoint best locations for distributed solar generation, and support the development of policies for greater environmental sustainability. It provides a framework to which many more UM flows can be added to create greater understanding of the study area's resource dependencies. Going forward, together with policy analysis, UM can help untangle the complex intertwined resource dependencies that cities must address as they attempt to increase their environmental sustainability.

show abstract

“…Our analysis indicates that to treat all untreated water; these cities would only need to increase electricity use 0%-4% over their current communitywide levels of use when considering the least to most energy-intensive technologies. These results are not surprising, given that energy use for water and sewage treatment are generally a very small percentage of community-wide energy use, as has been seen for Indian cities (Miller et al 2012) and US cities (e.g. Hillman and Ramaswami 2010).…”

Section: Direct Energy and Materials Requirements To Serve Under-servementioning

confidence: 75%

Resource requirements of inclusive urban development in India: insights from ten cities

Nagpure

Reiner

Ramaswami

2018

Environ. Res. Lett.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper develops a methodology to assess the resource requirements of inclusive urban development in India and compares those requirements to current community-wide material and energy flows. Methods include: (a) identifying minimum service level benchmarks for the provision of infrastructure services including housing, electricity and clean cooking fuels; (b) assessing the percentage of homes that lack access to infrastructure or that consume infrastructure services below the identified benchmarks; (c) quantifying the material requirements to provide basic infrastructure services using India-specific design data; and (d) computing material and energy requirements for inclusive development and comparing it with current community-wide material and energy flows. Applying the method to ten Indian cities, we find that: 1%-6% of households do not have electricity, 14%-71% use electricity below the benchmark of 25 kWh capita-month −1 ; 4%-16% lack structurally sound housing; 50%-75% live in floor area less than the benchmark of 8.75 m 2 floor area/capita; 10%-65% lack clean cooking fuel; and 6%-60% lack connection to a sewerage system. Across the ten cities examined, to provide basic electricity (25 kWh capita-month −1 ) to all will require an addition of only 1%-10% in current community-wide electricity use. To provide basic clean LPG fuel (1.2 kg capita-month −1 ) to all requires an increase of 5%-40% in current community-wide LPG use. Providing permanent shelter (implemented over a ten year period) to populations living in non-permanent housing in Delhi and Chandigarh would require a 6%-14% increase over current annual community-wide cement use. Conversely, to provide permanent housing to all people living in structurally unsound housing and those living in overcrowded housing (<5 m cap −2 ) would require 32%-115% of current community-wide cement flows. Except for the last scenario, these results suggest that social policies that seek to provide basic infrastructure provisioning for all residents would not dramatically increasing current community-wide resource flows.

show abstract

Contribution of Water and Wastewater Infrastructures to Urban Energy Metabolism and Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Cities in India

Cited by 39 publications

References 11 publications

Water-energy nexus for urban water systems: A comparative review on energy intensity and environmental impacts in relation to global water risks

Water-energy nexus for urban water systems: A comparative review on energy intensity and environmental impacts in relation to global water risks

Enabling Future Sustainability Transitions

Resource requirements of inclusive urban development in India: insights from ten cities

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About