A National Energy-Water System Assessment Framework (NEWS): Overview of Results from Stage 1 Research
Abstract
The aim of the NSF-funded Water Sustainability and Climate NEWS project is to study climate adaptation and the reliability of power sector infrastructure and operations, when viewed through the lens of strategic water limitations, climate and environmental change, technology adoption and the economy. NEWShas been applied in a series of energy/policy scenario studies to 2050 using AR5 RCP/SSPclimate realizations to drive: technology assessment models for renewable and non-renewable electricity generation technologies; hydrology and thermal impact simulations; and input/output economic models at national and regional levels. The NEWS project combines core models through unique digital "handshake" protocols that operate across different institutions and modeling platforms. We report on a comprehensive set of results from multiple NEWS studies that uncover key energy and economic system vulnerabilities and potential adaptation solutions. These include tradeoffs between thermal pollution and electricity generation discussed under alternative technology, environmental regulation and climate conditions. Another study reveals that despite constraints on individual plants, there is potential for adaptation to future climates by capitalizing on the size of regional power systems and grid configuration. However, climate-water impacts do lower thermoelectric reserve margins, a measure of systems-level reliability, highlighting the need to integrate connections across climate, water resources and power supply into energy planning. Under this requisite, a novel integrated modeling approach was implemented linking hydrology and power plant simulation models (WBM-TP2M) with economic-based electricity expansion and dispatch models (PLEXOS, ReEDS). Climate-water constraints alter infrastructure operations and expansion decisions while adaption measures are identified as the modeling framework converges on a feasible forecast in the context of future climate-water conditions. Steps toward adaptation improve power supply reliability and environmental impacts as renewable technologies become more prominent, highlighting the importance of power grid modernization.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFMGC32C..06V
- Keywords:
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- 1630 Impacts of global change;
- GLOBAL CHANGEDE: 1847 Modeling;
- HYDROLOGYDE: 1878 Water/energy interactions;
- HYDROLOGYDE: 4315 Monitoring;
- forecasting;
- prediction;
- NATURAL HAZARDS