60 / 2016-04-25 19:15:53

Electricity and water nexus in China

water-electricity nexus,1127,electricity consumption,freshwater demands

China, as one of the most swiftly developing countriesis, is facing problems including increasing energy demands, freshwater shortage, and climate change. Since the link between water use and energy production, the problem in one resource may convert into another’s or the shortage of one resource may affect another during the settlement procedures. In order to prevent that, it is important to understanding of the water and electricity nexus. So we followed the step of systematic review-meta analysis, tied to obtain useful and reliable intensity factors of the water use by electricity generation and electricity use by water management in China, which is the footstone for revealing the underlying nexus between water and energy. In this study, data was obtained by one-site visits, values reported in the literature, and estimations/plausible reasoning directly. For the unfound data, we used mechanistic equations to acquire them indirectly.
We found that among the electricity-generating technologies, hydroelectricity has the most water consumption and thus is not the optimal choice for both fossil-energy and water conservation. Tidal energy, wind power and solar photovoltaic can play an important role in water saving while electricity generation; in the water-use chain, desalination by Multi-stage Flash Distillation involves the most energy while water treatment and supply technologies involve the least. Actions to address the water shortage problem could have some implications for energy resources and the climate depending on the choice of supplemental water sources: if the diversion distance is less than 44 km, water transportation would be the best choice; if it is more than 333 km and less than 422 km, water reuse would be better; if it is more than 2888 km, water transportation would be the last choice; for the other distances, reliable plant level data are needed for further evaluation.