Water status in the Canary Islands related to energy requirements

Cerezal, Juan Carlos Santamarta; Rubiales, Ignacio Calvo; Rodríguez-Martín, Jesica

doi:10.1007/s12053-021-10016-7

Cited by 9 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…However, greenhouse gas emissions linked, above all, to tourist establishments have been exhaustively studied. The water-energy nexus is very strong, and this is especially true in facilities such as seawater desalination plants, where large amounts of energy are needed to produce drinking water [49]. This link between energy and water has led to the study of emissions, including, among other areas, the production of domestic hot water in hotels [50], and different types of membranes in desalination by reverse osmosis [51].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water Footprint of the Water Cycle of Gran Canaria and Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain)

Cruz‐Pérez

Cerezal

García‐Gil

et al. 2022

Water

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When it comes to exploiting natural resources, islands have limitations due to the quantity of these resources and the potential for harm to the ecosystem if exploitation is not done in a sustainable manner. This article presents a study of the water footprint of the different drinking water collection facilities and wastewater treatment facilities in the Canary Islands, in order to determine the blue, green, and grey water footprints in each case. The results show high percentages of drinking water losses, which raises the blue water footprint of the Canary Islands archipelago. The grey water footprint was studied in terms of Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD5). The green water footprint was not considered because it is a dimension of the water footprint mainly calculated for agricultural crops. Of the facilities studied, the wells for extraction of drinking water from the aquifer and the distribution network have the largest blue water footprint for the years under study (2019 and 2020). Only the wastewater treatment plants have a gray water footprint in this study, with values between 79,000 and 108,000 m3 per year. As a general conclusion, the most important factor in reducing the water footprint of the water cycle in the Canary Islands is optimization of the water resource, improving existing infrastructures to minimize losses, and implementing a greater circular economy that reuses water on a regular basis.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water Footprint of the Water Cycle of Gran Canaria and Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain)

Cruz‐Pérez

Cerezal

García‐Gil

et al. 2022

Water

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“…It is in electricity consumption where a company's emissions tend to skyrocket, as long as the company's electricity mix does not include 100% renewable energies, or the percentage of these is very low. It is therefore vital to focus on energy production, which is closely linked to the production and treatment of drinking water (Santamarta et al 2022 ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Accordingly, the production of energy from renewable resources offers an alternative to alleviate the pressure of this activity on the environment by reducing GHG emissions (Santamarta et al 2022 ). In addition, desalination plants generate brine waste during its reverse osmosis operations that requires a correct management of its disposal (Kress et al 2020 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A comparison between carbon footprint of water production facilities in the Canary Islands: groundwater resources vs. seawater desalination

Cruz‐Pérez

Cerezal

Gamallo-Paz

et al. 2022

Sustain. Water Resour. Manag.

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The Canary Islands have a water culture tied to the exploitation of their groundwater by means of wells and water galleries. However, the growth of tourism, the increase in the local population and the development of agriculture have led to the emergence of new ways of obtaining water, such as the desalination of seawater. The presence of these desalination plants covers the entire archipelago except for the island of La Palma, and sometimes they function as a complement to water needs, while in other cases they are the only source of drinking water available. To study the environmental impact of the production of drinking water through the exploitation of the aquifer and the desalination of seawater, the carbon footprint methodology was used following the guidelines of the GHG Protocol. The result has shown that seawater installations have the largest carbon footprint, mainly due to the high electricity consumption in the islands and the electricity mix of the archipelago which, as it does not rely entirely on renewable energy sources, increases CO2 emissions into the atmosphere due to the production of drinking water in the islands.

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“…There is variability in the primary source of drinking water across the Canary Islands, with the easternmost islands, including Gran Canaria, reliant on desalination as their primary source of drinking water [94]. Despite a shift towards renewable energy-generation technologies, only 16% of the electricity demand of Gran Canaria was generated renewably in 2019 [95].…”

Section: Case-study Locations and Environmental Conditionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lifetime optimisation of integrated thermally- and electrically-driven solar desalination plants

Markides,

Winchester,

Huang

et al. 2023

Preprint

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We compare the performance across different locations of systems employing photovoltaic (PV) panels, flat-plate and evacuated-tube solar-thermal (ST), and hybrid photovoltaic-thermal (PV-T) collectors to fulfil the energy demands (both thermal and electrical) of multi-effect distillation (MED) desalination plants. We consider large- (1700 m3/day), medium- (120 m3/day) and small-scale (3 m3/day) MED plants. We find a strong dependence of both the capacity and configuration of the solar collectors used on both the cost of sourcing electricity from the grid and the specific collector employed. We find mean grid-electricity fractions range from 47%, for the lowest grid-cost location, to 2.5% for the highest grid-cost location. We find that systems using PV-T and ST collectors meet between 49% and 62% of the hot-water demand at these locations, respectively. We find lifetime costs for the smallest-, medium- and largest-scale plants' energy-generation systems as low as 0.209, 3.35 and 50.8 million USD, respectively, corresponding to specific costs of 6.37, 2.55 and 2.74 USD/m3. We find that systems using solar collectors, when optimised for the lowest specific cost, result in associated CO2eq emissions equal to, or higher than, those associated with grid-driven reverse osmosis. These results highlight the need to consider the environmental footprint of these systems, not only their cost, to ensure that desalination is in-line with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG6).

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Water status in the Canary Islands related to energy requirements

Cited by 9 publications

References 34 publications

Water Footprint of the Water Cycle of Gran Canaria and Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain)

Water Footprint of the Water Cycle of Gran Canaria and Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain)

A comparison between carbon footprint of water production facilities in the Canary Islands: groundwater resources vs. seawater desalination

Lifetime optimisation of integrated thermally- and electrically-driven solar desalination plants

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