Water and Energy Variability to Assess Opportunities for Blending Natural and Desalinated Water Resources
Abstract
In the last decades, several technologies have been developed to produce clean water from saline water sources with the promise to secure water availability, especially in semi-arid regions and places threatened by climate change. While these options have demonstrated effective, further research is required to explore the potential and limitation of unconventional water resources under energy and environmental constraints. This requires rethinking the energy-water management models at different scales. For example, in semi-arid regions with large availability of solar energy and limited conventional water resources, desalination plants powered by renewables can be a sustainable option to meet local and regional water requirements. In this context, flow duration curves and seasonal regime curves, traditionally used to support water resource management practices, can be extended to include the unconventional water production driven by intermittent renewable energy. This study shows how natural runoff and photovoltaic-driven desalinated water can be combined, also considering different energy storage strategies. An application is proposed, based on case studies in the Mediterranean region, an area where the lack of water resource is particularly relevant during the summer period (limited availability of conventional water sources and increased water requirements due to tourist activities and crop water requirements) but that experiences a large availability of solar energy. The preliminary comparisons presented in this study shows the importance of additional contribution from unconventional water sources to meet water demand in arid regions: while more robust analysis is required, this initial assessment quantifies the potential of renewable desalination contribution to cope with regional water needs and provides suggestions to support the development water-energy infrastructures at regional level.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2021
- Bibcode:
- 2021AGUFM.H44F..06G