Matching Items (2)
Description
There is growing concern over the future availability of water for electricity generation. Because of a rapidly growing population coupled with an arid climate, the Western United States faces a particularly acute water/energy challenge, as installation of new electricity capacity is expected to be required in the areas with the most limited water availability. Electricity trading is anticipated to be an important strategy for avoiding further local water stress, especially during drought and in the areas with the most rapidly growing populations. Transfers of electricity imply transfers of "virtual water" - water required for the production of a product. Yet, as a result of sizable demand growth, there may not be excess capacity in the system to support trade as an adaptive response to long lasting drought. As the grid inevitably expands capacity due to higher demand, or adapts to anticipated climate change, capacity additions should be selected and sited to increase system resilience to drought. This paper explores the tradeoff between virtual water and local water/energy infrastructure development for the purpose of enhancing the Western US power grid's resilience to drought. A simple linear model is developed that estimates the economically optimal configuration of the Western US power grid given water constraints. The model indicates that natural gas combined cycle power plants combined with increased interstate trade in power and virtual water provide the greatest opportunity for cost effective and water efficient grid expansion. Such expansion, as well as drought conditions, may shift and increase virtual water trade patterns, as states with ample water resources and a competitive advantage in developing power sources become net exporters, and states with limited water or higher costs become importers.
ContributorsHerron, Seth (Author) / Ruddell, Benjamin L (Thesis advisor) / Ariaratnam, Samuel (Thesis advisor) / Allenby, Braden (Committee member) / Williams, Eric (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The phrase water-energy nexus is commonly used to describe the inherent and critical interdependencies between the electric power system and the water supply systems (WSS). The key interdependencies between the two systems are the power plant’s requirement of water for the cooling cycle and the water system’s need of electricity for pumping for water supply. While previous work has considered the dependency of WSS on the electrical power, this work incorporates into an optimization-simulation framework, consideration of the impact of short and long-term limited availability of water and/or electrical energy.
This research focuses on the water supply system (WSS) facet of the multi-faceted optimization and control mechanism developed for an integrated water – energy nexus system under U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) project 029013-0010 CRISP Type 2 – Resilient cyber-enabled electric energy and water infrastructures modeling and control under extreme mega drought scenarios. A water supply system (WSS) conveys water from sources (such as lakes, rivers, dams etc.) to the treatment plants and then to users via the water distribution systems (WDS) and/or water supply canal systems (WSCS). Optimization-simulation methodologies are developed for the real-time operation of water supply systems (WSS) under critical conditions of limited electrical energy and/or water availability due to emergencies such as extreme drought conditions, electric grid failure, and other severe conditions including natural and manmade disasters. The coupling between WSS and the power system was done through alternatively exchanging data between the power system and WSS simulations via a program control overlay developed in python.
A new methodology for WDS infrastructural-operational resilience (IOR) computation was developed as a part of this research to assess the real-time performance of the WDS under emergency conditions. The methodology combines operational resilience and component level infrastructural robustness to provide a comprehensive performance assessment tool.
The optimization-simulation and resilience computation methodologies developed were tested for both hypothetical and real example WDS and WSCS, with results depicting improved resilience for operations of the WSS under normal and emergency conditions.
This research focuses on the water supply system (WSS) facet of the multi-faceted optimization and control mechanism developed for an integrated water – energy nexus system under U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) project 029013-0010 CRISP Type 2 – Resilient cyber-enabled electric energy and water infrastructures modeling and control under extreme mega drought scenarios. A water supply system (WSS) conveys water from sources (such as lakes, rivers, dams etc.) to the treatment plants and then to users via the water distribution systems (WDS) and/or water supply canal systems (WSCS). Optimization-simulation methodologies are developed for the real-time operation of water supply systems (WSS) under critical conditions of limited electrical energy and/or water availability due to emergencies such as extreme drought conditions, electric grid failure, and other severe conditions including natural and manmade disasters. The coupling between WSS and the power system was done through alternatively exchanging data between the power system and WSS simulations via a program control overlay developed in python.
A new methodology for WDS infrastructural-operational resilience (IOR) computation was developed as a part of this research to assess the real-time performance of the WDS under emergency conditions. The methodology combines operational resilience and component level infrastructural robustness to provide a comprehensive performance assessment tool.
The optimization-simulation and resilience computation methodologies developed were tested for both hypothetical and real example WDS and WSCS, with results depicting improved resilience for operations of the WSS under normal and emergency conditions.
ContributorsKhatavkar, Puneet (Author) / Mays, Larry W. (Thesis advisor) / Vittal, Vijay (Committee member) / Mascaro, Giuseppe (Committee member) / Fox, Peter (Committee member) / Zhang, Junshan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019