Water use in China’s thermoelectric power sector

Liao, Xiawei; Hall, Jim W.; Eyre, Nick

doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.09.007

Cited by 113 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…In the northern region, the cooling system was changed from closed type to air cooling type. However, on the whole, water consumption hardly changed [6]. Therefore, extracting moisture from exhaust gas for reuse is a sensible choice to save water and can greatly reduce the dependence of the thermal power industry on freshwater resources.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental Study on Water Recovery from Flue Gas Using Macroporous Ceramic Membrane

2020

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In this work, a ceramic membrane tube with a pore size of 1 µm was used to conduct experimental research on moisture and waste heat recovery from flue gas. The length, inner/outer diameter, and porosity were 800 mm, 8/12 mm, and 27.2%, respectively. In the experiments, the flue gas, which was artificially prepared, flowed on the shell side of membrane module. The water coolant passed through the membrane counter-currently with the gas. The effects of flue gas flow rate, flue gas temperature, water coolant flux, and water coolant temperature on the membrane recovery performance were analyzed. The results indicated that, upon increasing the flue gas flow rate and its temperature, both the amount of recycled water and the recovered heat increased. The amount of recycled water, recycled water rate, recovered heat, and heat recovery rate all decreased as the water coolant temperature increased. When the water coolant temperature exceeded 30 • C, the amount of recycled water dropped sharply. The maximum amounts of recycled water, recovered heat, and total heat transfer coefficient were 2.93 kg/(m 2 ·h), 3.63 kW/m 2 , and 224.3 W/(m 2 ·K), respectively.Materials 2020, 13, 804 2 of 18 are required. At present, the production of adsorbent in the adsorption technology requires a large amount of energy; thus, adsorption technology is less economical. Additionally, the treatment of precipitate formed by the contact between the flue gas and the absorbent is technically difficult [9,10]. Usually, the membrane materials used in flue gas moisture recovery are fiber membranes and ceramic membranes. Although the membranes are relatively expensive to manufacture, they take advantages of high efficiency, reliability, and heat and chemical resistance [11,12]. Therefore, membrane separation technology is more promising in the flue gas moisture recovery field.Regarding fiber membranes, Sijbesma et al.[13] comparatively studied two membrane bundles composed of polyether block amide (PEBAX ® 1074) and sulfonated polyether ether ketone (SPEEK) membrane materials for moisture recovery from power plant exhaust. The results revealed that the performance of SPEEK fiber membrane with a sulfonation degree of 60% was better. Under the real flue gas condition, the vapor removal rate of the membrane was 0.2 to 0.46 L/(m 2 ·h). Gao et al. [14] performed an experimental study on a polyether sulfone-sulfonated polyether ether ketone (PES-SPEEK) hollow-fiber membrane applied to recycle water from exhaust gas. The influences on water and waste heat recovery, such as sulfonation degree, coating, filling rate, and length of membrane, were analyzed. The fiber membranes mentioned above are all hydrophilic. For hydrophobic membranes, the Macedonio team constructed a membrane condenser using polyvinylidene fluoride hollow-fiber membranes and carried out simulation calculations [11]. They showed that the water recovery rate could reached 20% when the exhaust temperature drop was less than 5 • C. Brunetti et al. [15] experimentally examined the effect of ∆T (t...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental Study on Water Recovery from Flue Gas Using Macroporous Ceramic Membrane

2020

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“…Second, this study considered fresh water used for hydropower generation to be zero because water evaporating from multifunctional reservoir cannot contribute to hydropower generation. Although some of the previous studies made the similar assumption to estimate water use by hydropower [19,22], water consumed through evaporation from reservoir cannot be neglected. There have been studies trying to separate water use by hydropower from the total water evaporated from reservoir according to hydropower's economic value [3].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of Future Water Use for Electricity Generation under Different Energy Development Scenarios in China

Lin

Chen

2017

Sustainability

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Water scarcity and uneven water demand in regional electricity generation pose substantial challenges to the sustainable development of water resources and electricity production in China. Based on the latest official policy of China's electricity development, i.e., the 13th Five-Year Plan of electricity development, this study quantified annual water withdrawal and consumption for future electricity generation in China from 2015 to 2030. This study simulated a three-prong approach to impacting water use for electricity development, i.e., updating the cooling technology mix, increasing non-thermal power generation and relocating thermal power plants to the west. The results showed that solutions to relieve water stress caused by electricity production entail major trade-offs. Annual water withdrawal and consumption were projected to exceed 63.75 and 8.30 billion m 3 by 2030, up approximately 14% and 21% of those in 2015, respectively, if China does not implement any new water and energy policies. Replacing once-through cooling systems with closed-loop cooling systems would decrease national water withdrawal remarkably but increase water consumption. The west-centered spatial distribution of thermoelectric power generation would reduce water use at the national level; however, it will largely increase water stress in northern and northwestern China. Thus, relieving the stress of growing electricity demand on water resources in China requires comprehensive measures and quantitative estimates.

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“…Reliability (Rel) is calculated as the probability (frequency) of the case when daily usable capacity is not smaller than the historic power output: 7) where N is the total number of days during the study period and N UC ≥P t is the total number of days when UC t is not smaller than P t . Note that (1 − Rel) describes how often an electricity undersupply case may occur at a power plant.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seasonal Risk Assessment of Water–Electricity Nexus Systems under Water Consumption Policy Constraint

Zhang

Cai

et al. 2020

Environ. Sci. Technol.

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Previous studies have estimated power plant cooling water consumption based on the long-term average cooling water consumption intensity (WI: water consumption per unit of electricity generation) at an annual scale. However, the impacts of the seasonality of WI and streamflow on electricity generation are less well understood. In this study, a risk assessment method is developed to explore the seasonal risk of water−electricity nexus based on the Integrated Environmental Control Model, which can simulate variable WIs in response to daily weather conditions and avoid underestimation in WIs as well as nexus risk during dry seasons. Three indicators, reliability, maximum time to recovery, and total power generation loss, are proposed to quantify the seasonal nexus risk under water consumption policy constraint represented by the allowed maximum percentage of water consumption to streamflow. The applications of the method in two representative watersheds demonstrate that the nexus risk is highly seasonal and is greatly impacted by the seasonal variability of streamflow rather than annual average water resources conditions on which most previous studies are based. The nexus is found more risky in the watershed with almost double mean annual streamflow and greater streamflow variability, compared with the watershed with less streamflow variability.

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Water use in China’s thermoelectric power sector

Cited by 113 publications

References 23 publications

Experimental Study on Water Recovery from Flue Gas Using Macroporous Ceramic Membrane

Experimental Study on Water Recovery from Flue Gas Using Macroporous Ceramic Membrane

Evaluation of Future Water Use for Electricity Generation under Different Energy Development Scenarios in China

Seasonal Risk Assessment of Water–Electricity Nexus Systems under Water Consumption Policy Constraint

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