Co-current analysis among electricity-water-carbon for the power sector in China

Baojun Tang, Yun Wu, Biying Yu*, Ru Li, Xiangyu Wang

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    21 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    China's power sector consumes large amounts of water for its cooling every year, which has increased water stress in many regions and caused the vulnerability in electricity generation. Current plans for power sector mainly focus on the clean and low-carbon development, while it is unclear how to reconcile CO2-reduction target with water-saving target. In this paper, an optimization model named NET-Power (National Energy Technology-Power) is developed to simulate the deployment of power generation technologies, and to further answer whether there is a conflict or not between water-saving target and CO2-reduction target in the power sector. The result shows that peaking carbon emissions before 2030 in the power sector may increase the water consumption by 34.85Gt. In addition, to further meeting the water constraint on the basis of peaking carbon emissions would lead to a higher carbon intensity of thermal power. These findings indicate that low-carbon transition will cause significant water-carbon contradiction, which mainly lies in nuclear power technology and dry-cooling technology. Finally, the optimal technology layout path that can meet the dual constraints of water and carbon for the power sector in China is proposed.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number141005
    JournalScience of the Total Environment
    Volume745
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 25 Nov 2020

    Keywords

    • China
    • Low-carbon transition
    • NET-Power model
    • Power sector
    • Water saving
    • Water-carbon nexus

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