Linking electricity and water models to assess electricity choices at water-relevant scales

Abstract

Hydrology/water management and electricity generation projections have been modeled separately, but there has been little effort in intentionally and explicitly linking the two sides of the water-energy nexus. This paper describes a platform for assessing power plant cooling water withdrawals and consumption under different electricity pathways at geographic and time scales appropriate for both electricity and hydrology/water management. This platform uses estimates of regional electricity generation by the Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) as input to a hydrologic and water management model-the Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) system. In WEAP, this electricity use represents thermoelectric cooling water withdrawals and consumption within the broader, regional water resource context. Here we describe linking the electricity and water models, including translating electricity generation results from ReEDS-relevant geographies to the water-relevant geographies of WEAP. The result of this analysis is water use by the electric sector at the regional watershed level, which is used to examine the water resource implications of these electricity pathways.

Long-term implications of sustained wind power growth in the United States: Potential benefits and secondary impacts

“…Water impacts were aggregated from the ReEDS model regions to the 18 U.S. Geological Survey Hydrologic Unit Code watershed regions (Seaber et al 1987). Data aggregation techniques follow those described in Macknick et al (2012b) and Sattler et al (2012). ReEDS incorporates the cost, performance, and water-use characteristics of different generation fuel-technology and cooling-system combinations, and it considers water availability as a condition for new power-plant construction.…”

An integrated assessment of water-energy and climate change in sacramento, california: how strong is the nexus?

“…For example, Ould-Amrouchea et al (2010) and Campana et al (2013) investigated photovoltaic (PV) water pumping systems and Alawaji et al (1995) analyzed desalination plant size with PV in Saudi Arabia. Similarly, Dubreuil et al (2013) estimated the energy used to process and supply drinking water and Stillwell et al (2011), Sattler et al (2012), van Vliet et al (2013, and Koch and Vögele (2013) estimated the water used to supply energy by coupling hydrologic with energy (e.g., thermal power plant) models.…”

A review of water use in the U.S. electric power sector: insights from systems-level perspectives

“…This issue provides perhaps the most comprehensive and integrated effort to assess the water implications of electric power generation in the U.S., both at the national level and also with a high enough level of spatial resolution to assess watershed-level impacts. This issue includes the following sets of analyses: (a) a review of water factors from the primary literature [23 ] and comparison of reported and calculated water use [22]; (b) description of a linked energy and water modeling framework (ReEDS and WEAP) [44]; (c) modeling of low carbon electricity futures [37], with assessment of the water impacts of those scenarios at the national and regional level [34 ]; and (d) linking the results of the electricity scenarios with models of regional water systems for the southeastern U.S. [31,43] and southwestern U.S. [32,42].…”