Assessing the impact of electricity consumption on water resources in the U.S.

Abstract

Electricity generation heavily relies on water. Growing electricity demand globally inevitably leads to water availability concerns. This study proposes a means to quantify the indirect water usage embodied in electricity and assesses the holistic impact of water consumption on available water resources. First, the energy water intensity factor (EWIF), which quantifies the amount of water used to produce energy, is updated at the contiguous U.S. balancing authority (BA) level and on an end user basis to account for electricity trades using an input-output model. Further, the scarce water index (SWI), or volume of scarce water embodied per kWh electricity consumed, is proposed to predict electricity consuming facility water stress impact as the water scarcity footprint (WSF). A case study of U.S. data centers is presented to demonstrate the use of these metrics. Results show that WSF is region-dependent, and the burden of regional water scarcity extends beyond region boundaries.