Abstract
The water-energy intertwined relationship has recently gained more importance due to the high water consumption in the energy sector and to the limited availability of the water resources. The energy and electricity demand of Turkey is increasing rapidly in the last two decades. More thermal power plants are expected to be built in the near future to supply the rapidly increasing demand in Turkey which will put pressure on water availability. In this study, the water consumption for electricity generation at Turkish power plants is investigated. The main objectives of this study are to identify the amount of water consumed to generate 1 kWh of electricity for each generation technology currently used in Turkey and to investigate ways to reduce the water consumption at power plants expected to be built in the near future to supply the increasing demand. The various electricity generation technology mixture scenarios are analyzed to determine the future total and per generation water consumption, and water savings based on changes of cooling systems used for each technology. The Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning (LEAP) program is used to determine the minimum water consuming electricity generation technology mixtures using optimization approaches between 2017 and 2035.
Highlights
Energy production is a water–intensive process in which water is used for fuel extraction, fuel processing, and electricity generation
In the first phase of the study, the detailed power plant data is analyzed to determine the total water consumption based on cooling systems for each technology
By using the water consumption factors (WCF) determined from open literature for each cooling type used in each technology, total water consumption of each technology is calculated using Equation 1
Summary
Energy production is a water–intensive process in which water is used for fuel extraction, fuel processing, and electricity generation. The once through cooling system withdraws a large amount of water from a nearby water body, such as ocean, river, lake, pond or canal After this water passes through the condenser, it is sent back to the water body where it is withdrawn. While this system does not withdraw large amounts of water, it consumes more water than the once through system during the evaporating process at the cooling tower [1, 4] Another method used at thermoelectric power plants is the dry cooling system in which air flows across the steam in tube arrays to condense it [5]
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