An Enterprise Control Methodology for the Techno-Economic Assessment of the Energy Water Nexus

TL;DR

This paper introduces an enterprise control methodology to evaluate the combined techno-economic performance of energy and water systems, emphasizing renewable integration and water resource flexibility within the electricity grid.

Contribution

It extends existing renewable energy integration methods to include water-energy resources, enabling systematic assessment of their synergies in the energy-water nexus.

Findings

Quantifies water withdrawal and consumption in energy systems.

Assesses the impact of water resources on grid operation costs.

Demonstrates methodology on a modified RTS-96 test case.

Abstract

In recent years, the energy-water nexus literature has recognized that the electricity and water infrastructure that enable the production, distribution, and consumption of these two commodities is fundamentally intertwined. Electric power is used to produce, treat, distribute, and recycle water while water is used to generate and consume electricity. In the meantime, significant attention has been given to renewable energy integration within the context of global climate change. While these two issues may seem unrelated, their resolution is potentially synergistic in that renewable energy technologies not only present low CO2 emissions but also low water-intensities. Furthermore, because water is readily stored, it has the potential to act as a flexible energy resource on both the supply and the demand-side of the electricity grid. Despite these synergies, the renewable energy integration and energy-water nexus literature have yet to methodologically converge to systematically address potential synergies. This paper advances an enterprise control methodology as a means of assessing the techno-economic performance of the energy water nexus. The enterprise control methodology has been developed in recent years to advance the methodological state of the art of renewable energy integration studies and used recently to carry out a full-scale study for the Independent System Operator (ISO) New England system. The methodology quantifies day-ahead and real-time energy market production costs, dispatched energy mixes, required operating reserves, levels of curtailment, and grid imbalances. This energy-water nexus methodological extension now includes flexible water-energy resources within the grid's energy resource portfolio and quantifies the amounts of water withdrawn and consumed. The simulation methodology is demonstrated on a modified version of the RTS-96 (RTS-GMLC) test case.