The power sector withdraws more freshwater annually than any other sector in the US. The current portfolio of electricity generating technologies in the US has highly regionalized and technology-specific requirements for water. Water availability differs widely throughout the nation. As a result, assessments of water impacts from the power sector must have a high geographic resolution and consider regional, basin-level differences. The US electricity portfolio is expected to evolve in coming years, shaped by various policy and economic drivers on the international, national and regional level; that evolution will impact power sector water demands. Analysis of future electricity scenarios that incorporate technology options and constraints can provide useful insights about water impacts related to changes to the technology mix. Utilizing outputs from the regional energy deployment system (ReEDS) model, a national electricity sector capacity expansion model with high geographical resolution, we explore potential changes in water use by the US electric sector over the next four decades under various low carbon energy scenarios, nationally and regionally.
The US electricity sector is currently responsible for more than 40% of both energy-related carbon dioxide emissions and total freshwater withdrawals for power plant cooling (EIA 2012a Annual Energy Outlook 2012 (Washington, DC: US Department of Energy), Kenny et al 2009 Estimated Use of Water in the United States 2005 (US Geological Survey Circular vol 1344) (Reston, VA: US Geological Survey)). Changes in the future electricity generation mix in the United States will have important implications for water use, particularly given the changing water availability arising from competing demands and climate change and variability. However, most models that are used to make long-term projections of the electricity sector do not have sufficient regional detail for analyzing water-related impacts and informing important electricity-and water-related decisions. This paper uses the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) to model a range of low-carbon electricity futures nationally that are used to calculate changes in national water use (a sample result, on water consumption, is included here). The model also produces detailed sub-regional electricity results through 2050 that can be linked with basin-level water modeling. The results will allow for sufficient geographic resolution and detail to be relevant from a water management perspective.
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.
This letter documents the development and validation of a climate-driven, southwestern-US-wide water resources planning model that is being used to explore the implications of extended drought and climate warming on the allocation of water among competing uses. These model uses include a separate accounting for irrigated agriculture; municipal indoor use based on local population and per-capita consumption; climate-driven municipal outdoor turf and amenity watering; and thermoelectric cooling. The model simulates the natural and managed flows of rivers throughout the southwest, including the South Platte, the Arkansas, the Colorado, the Green, the Salt, the Sacramento, the San Joaquin, the Owens, and more than 50 others. Calibration was performed on parameters of land cover, snow accumulation and melt, and water capacity and hydraulic conductivity of soil horizons. Goodness of fit statistics and other measures of performance are shown for a select number of locations and are used to summarize the model's ability to represent monthly streamflow, reservoir storages, surface and ground water deliveries, etc, under 1980-2010 levels of sectoral water use.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations鈥揷itations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Copyright 漏 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 馃挋 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.