Water use in electricity generation for water-energy nexus analyses: The European case

Morten Andreas Dahl Larsen,Martin Drews

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.10.045

Morten Andreas Dahl Larsen, Martin Drews

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.10.045

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Abstract

With almost 40% of the global population suffering from water scarcity, the need to manage water resources is evidently urgent. While water and energy systems are intrinsically linked, the availability of comprehensive, integrated data sets across the domains of water and energy is generally lacking. As a result, estimated indicators representing volumes of water usage per unit of electricity or fuel produced are often required to analyse the water-energy nexus. In this paper, an “ensemble” of indicators is assembled representing water usage spanning different electricity-generation technologies based on previously published works in an attempt to depict the level or lack of detail in current large-scale energy-sector water-usage data. Based on these, the degree in which using such estimates is suitable for reproducing electricity-production water-usage at coarser spatio-temporal scales is assessed. The performance of the ensemble median/min/max as a predictor of water use is evaluated for the period from 1980 to 2015 using additional information about the constituents of the European energy system. Comparing with the reported values for 1980–2015, the median provides a skillful reproduction of historical yearly water use for the EU (EU28) as a whole. A further analysis for 2015 indicates that reasonable agreement is also seen at the country level. Thus, the results suggest that an “ensemble-based approach” has the potential to provide sturdy estimates of yearly water use by energy systems for analyses at both the country and regional levels.

Highlights

Drews / Science of the Total Environment 651 (2019) 2044–2058 cooling power plants, electricity generation and bio-fuel production, as well as in the extraction, mining, processing, refining and disposal of fossil-fuel residues. 44% of total global water withdrawals are used for energy production, a dominant share of which is cooling water in thermoelectric electricity generation (Collins et al, 2009)
The analysis provides an estimate of the total water usage for electricity generation within EU28
In the following the results of reconstructing levels of the withdrawal and consumption of freshwater from the energy sector in EU28 are compared with reported withdrawal data from Eurostat

Summary

Introduction

44% of total global water withdrawals are used for energy production, a dominant share of which is cooling water in thermoelectric electricity generation (Collins et al, 2009). Energy and water are both limited resources that are essential for the fundamental services, including food production, required by a rapidly growing global population that is projected to reach 9.7 billion in 2050 (United Nations, 2017). It is increasingly critical to manage the nexus between energy and water properly (Kurian, 2017) in the broader context of dependent socio-economic sectors, including the wider water–energy–food nexus (Griggs et al, 2013; Howells and Rogner, 2014; United Nations General Assembly, 2015). Proper water-energy management is especially crucial in light of the fact that electricity and fuel production relies on an estimated 90% of non-sustainable water sources (WWAP, 2014), as well as the increasing demands for water, energy and food driven by, among others, the growth in population and economies (Hoekstra et al, 2012)

Results

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Conclusion