Abstract
Trends in the locations and technologies of UK electricity generation plant suggest that demand for cooling water abstractions from rivers will decrease in the coming decades, unless there is widespread uptake of carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS). CCS may prove to be essential if the UK is to achieve its carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emission targets. ‘Decarbonisation’ strategies that rely on CCS are therefore potentially at risk of not having sufficient cooling water in periods of low river flows. In this paper, regional freshwater demands for cooling water are assessed against regional freshwater availability at low flows in a scenario of medium climate change. In the strategy with high CCS, demands for water greatly exceed current and future availability in the north-west (NW) England, Humber, East (E) Midlands and Thames regions. These risks can be mitigated by increasing the penetration of hybrid cooling systems or shifting generating capacity to estuaries or the coast. The former could reduce national water use by up to 35%, whereas applying the latter in the NW England, Humber and E Midlands regions offers nationwide reductions from 30 to 50%.
Highlights
Over the last decade, numerous thermoelectric power stations across the world have faced output reductions and shutdown due to either cooling water that was too warm or insufficient in volume
It has been assumed that 30–35% of cycle gas turbine (CCGT) and 35–40% of coal-fired capacity are on freshwater, with similar proportions on tidal water
4.2 Peak abstraction demands The final aspect of the analysis evaluates the instantaneous demands in the electrified heat and transport (EHT)-carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) strategy assuming average and 100% load factor in regions 9, 10 and 16 (Table 5)
Summary
Numerous thermoelectric power stations across the world have faced output reductions and shutdown due to either cooling water that was too warm or insufficient in volume. This paper combines aspects of both approaches to identify potential risks of low flows in a changing climate affecting cooling water availability at a regional scale across the UK, for three contrasting energy supply scenarios developed as part of the UK Infrastructure Transitions Research Consortium (ITRC) National Infrastructure Assessment (Hall et al, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015). The authors ascertain on a regional level whether the sector’s demands exceed available resources during low flows in the future. They recap on methods and results from their previous assessments of future cooling water requirements of UK electricity pathways at national (Byers et al, 2014) and regional (Hall et al, 2015; Tran et al, 2014) scales. The results and discussion follow a similar structure, concluded by a sensitivity analysis and policy discussion
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