Paper/Poster/Presentation Title
Keywords
Water-energy nexus, drought, cooling water, water supply
Start Date
17-9-2020 3:20 PM
End Date
17-9-2020 3:40 PM
Abstract
Water availability to supply cooling water demand has gained increasing attention as thermoelectric power plants need a large amount of cooling water. Thermoelectric power generation is the largest water user in the state of Illinois, USA. Previous studies often examined water-energy nexus risk by using the long-term average cooling water consumption intensity at an annual scale. However, both water availability and water demand by power generation is highly seasonal with peak demand and low supply coincidently occur in the same time of year in Illinois and many other places. The impacts of the water consumption intensity and streamflow seasonality on electricity generation are less well understood. Using the Integrated Environmental Control Model (IECM), we examined the seasonal risk of water-electricity nexus with three indicators, i.e. reliability, maximum time to recovery, and total power generation loss. The IECM can simulate the water consumption intensity over periods in response to daily ambient climate conditions. Furthermore, a water-electricity nexus model is developed to facilitate electricity generation decisions and environmental policy designs involving cooling water consumption and temperature controls. This nexus model consists of three modules, a physically based hydrologic module, an optimization module, and a thermoelectricity generation module. The three modules are integrated at the daily time step. The model is used to quantify trade-offs between environmental impacts and potential electricity supplies at the power plant and watershed levels. The results showed that the risk of the water-electricity nexus is highly seasonal and is greatly impacted by the seasonal variability of streamflow and the nexus model is applicable for a watershed-wide, coordinated water-energy policy design under different combinations of environmental regulations and economic penalties during a drought event.
Coupling a Hydrologic Model with the Decentralized Optimization for the Seasonal Water-Electricity Risk Assessment
Water availability to supply cooling water demand has gained increasing attention as thermoelectric power plants need a large amount of cooling water. Thermoelectric power generation is the largest water user in the state of Illinois, USA. Previous studies often examined water-energy nexus risk by using the long-term average cooling water consumption intensity at an annual scale. However, both water availability and water demand by power generation is highly seasonal with peak demand and low supply coincidently occur in the same time of year in Illinois and many other places. The impacts of the water consumption intensity and streamflow seasonality on electricity generation are less well understood. Using the Integrated Environmental Control Model (IECM), we examined the seasonal risk of water-electricity nexus with three indicators, i.e. reliability, maximum time to recovery, and total power generation loss. The IECM can simulate the water consumption intensity over periods in response to daily ambient climate conditions. Furthermore, a water-electricity nexus model is developed to facilitate electricity generation decisions and environmental policy designs involving cooling water consumption and temperature controls. This nexus model consists of three modules, a physically based hydrologic module, an optimization module, and a thermoelectricity generation module. The three modules are integrated at the daily time step. The model is used to quantify trade-offs between environmental impacts and potential electricity supplies at the power plant and watershed levels. The results showed that the risk of the water-electricity nexus is highly seasonal and is greatly impacted by the seasonal variability of streamflow and the nexus model is applicable for a watershed-wide, coordinated water-energy policy design under different combinations of environmental regulations and economic penalties during a drought event.
Stream and Session
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