How do markets manage water resources?. An experiment on resource market (de) centralization with endogenous quality.

We test how a monopoly, a duopoly and a public monopoly manage and allocate water resources. Stock depletion for the public monopoly is fastest. However, it reaches the optimal stock level towards the end of the experimental sessions. The private monopoly and duopoly maintain inefficiently high levels of stock throughout the sessions. The average quality to price ratio offered by the public monopoly is substantially higher than that offered by the private monopoly or duopoly. A clear result from the experiments is that a public monopoly offers the highest (average) quality to price ratio and has the fastest rate of stock depletion compared to a private monopoly or duopoly

HOW DO MARKETS MANAGE WATER RESOURCES? AN EXPERIMENT ON RESOURCE MARKET (DE) CENTRALIZATION WITH ENDOGENOUS QUALITY.

We test how a monopoly, a duopoly and a public monopoly manage and allocate water resources. Stock depletion for the public monopoly is fastest. However, it reaches the optimal stock level towards the end of the experimental sessions. The private monopoly and duopoly maintain inefficiently high levels of stock throughout the sessions. The average quality to price ratio offered by the public monopoly is substantially higher than that offered by the private monopoly or duopoly. A clear result from the experiments is that a public monopoly offers the highest (average) quality to price ratio and has the fastest rate of stock depletion compared to a private monopoly or duopoly.

EXERGETIC AND THERMOECONOMIC APPROACH FOR OPTIMAL PLANNING OF DISTRICT ENERGY SYSTEMS

A sustainable urban energy planning for achieving the EU 2020 and 2050 energy goals requires adopting a systemic approach based on reducing end-user energy requirements, recycling energy that otherwise would be wasted and replacing fossil fuels by renewable. District Heating and District Cooling play a key role in such a concept. From the sustainability viewpoint, district heating is an important option to supply heat to the users in urban areas. The energy convenience of such option depends on the annual energy request, the population density and the efficiency in heat production. Among the alternative technologies, geothermal heat pumps (both open loop and closed loop heat pumps) play a crucial role. In order for the DHN to remain an effective solution with respect to alternative technologies, the optimal configuration, design and operation must be investigated. This thesis aims to propose a methodology for the Multiobjective Optimizations of district heating networks, where the objective functions (the minimum specific primary energy consumption or the minimum economic cost) of a district heating network are investigated using a thermoeconomic based probabilistic procedure. A procedure, derived from Simulating Annealing optimization technique, to select which users in a urban area should be connected with a district heating network and which ones should be heated through an alternative technology is proposed. The goal of this procedure is to reach a globally optimal system from the energy and economic viewpoints. The procedure proposes district heating as the initial choice for all the users. The users are then progressively disconnected to the network, according with the primary energy required to supply them heat, and the alternative technology is considered for disconnected users. Here, ground water heat pump and condensing boilers are considered as the alternative technologies. The optimization technique developed in this PhD thesis develops the three levels of the optimization of energy systems: - Development of a Synthetic Method: The optimal synthesis is performed though a method which starts with a superstructure (where all the buildings (users) in the considered area for the expansion of DH network are supplied by district heating network) and then reduced to the optimal configuration (some of the users are disconnected from the DHN and supplied with an alternative technology such as geothermal heat pumps or condensing boilers). - Development of Optimal Design Method for the components and the properties at the nominal load selected in order to reach optimal performances: - as the users are disconnected from the district heating network, the mass flow rate flowing in the pipes is reduced resulting in different pipe diameters in comparison to the initial configuration. The optimal value velocity in the pipes is obtained as a function of the pipe diameters; - The cogeneration ratio (the ratio between the thermal power of the CHP appliances and the total thermal power installed in the power station ) has been considered as a parameter in the optimal design of the system. - Development of Optimal Operating properties: the operating properties under specific conditions has been changed, like the operating supply temperatures, but also the evolution of the network during its construction is considered. The application to an Italian town is considered as a test case. The main advantage of this procedure is that complex networks, like the DHN in Casale Monferrato characterized by 198 users, grouped in 21 macrozones, can be easily processed. The optimal configuration of the overall urban heating system is obtained. This configuration corresponds to the minimum primary energy request to supply heat to all the users (those connected to the network and those using an alternative heating system). After a brief introduction where the district heating technology is presented, the Thesis is divided in two parts: the first parts introduces the methodological approach proposed for the optimization of a District heating network, together with the description of the optimization model. The second part focuses on a specific application case, showing the preliminary operations required for the application of the model and the results obtained from the optimizations performed. The results have been interpreted trying to reach a more general conclusion which is not related only to the specific case stud

A Stochastic Multiple Players Multi-Issues Bargaining Model for the Piave River Basin

The objective of this paper is to investigate the usefulness of non-cooperative bargaining theory for the analysis of negotiations on water allocation and management. We explore the impacts of different economic incentives, a stochastic environment and varying individual preferences on players’ strategies and equilibrium outcomes through numerical simulations of a multilateral, multiple issues, non-cooperative bargaining model of water allocation in the Piave River Basin, in the North East of Italy. Players negotiate in an alternating-offer manner over the sharing of water resources (quantity and quality). Exogenous uncertainty over the size of the negotiated amount of water is introduced to capture the fact that water availability is not known with certainty to negotiating players. We construct the players’ objective function with their direct input. We then test the applicability of our multiple players, multi-issues, stochastic framework to a specific water allocation problem and conduct comparative static analyses to assess sources of bargaining power. Finally, we explore the implications of different attitudes and beliefs over water availability.Bargaining, Non-Cooperative Game Theory, Simulation Models, Uncertainty

How do markets manage water resources? An experiment

We experimentally test how a private monopoly, a duopoly and a public utility allocate water of differing qualities to households and farmers. Most of our results are in line with the theoretical predictions. Overexploitation of the resources is observed independently of the market structure. Stock depletion for the public utility is the fastest, followed by the private duopoly and private monopoly. On the positive aspects of centralized public management, we find that the average quality to price ratio offered by the public monopoly is substantially higher than that offered by the private monopoly or duopoly

Adaptive planning for resilient urban water systems under an uncertain future

Water planners are familiar with some form of variability in climate and demand. However, the uncertainty associated with the frequency and magnitude of the variations, coupled with broader performance expectations, means that long term deterministic planning needs to give way to a new approach. The structured adaptive planning process proposed in this paper aims to meet those objectives and accommodate the uncertainty in the future by developing a portfolio of measures that are both flexible to gradual changes in trends and robust to sudden shocks. A step-by-step process of the planning framework is presented. This is followed by a case study of the inputs and results based on its implementation by the Melbourne water businesses

Demand response within the energy-for-water-nexus - A review. ESRI WP637, October 2019

A promising tool to achieve more flexibility within power systems is demand re-sponse (DR). End-users in many strands of industry have been subject to research up to now regarding the opportunities for implementing DR programmes. One sector that has received little attention from the literature so far, is wastewater treatment. However, case studies indicate that the potential for wastewater treatment plants to provide DR services might be significant. This review presents and categorises recent modelling approaches for industrial demand response as well as for the wastewater treatment plant operation. Furthermore, the main sources of flexibility from wastewater treatment plants are presented: a potential for variable electricity use in aeration, the time-shifting operation of pumps, the exploitation of built-in redundan-cy in the system and flexibility in the sludge processing. Although case studies con-note the potential for DR from individual WWTPs, no study acknowledges the en-dogeneity of energy prices which arises from a large-scale utilisation of DR. There-fore, an integrated energy systems approach is required to quantify system and market effects effectively

Assessment of short-term aquifer thermal energy storage for demand-side management perspectives : experimental and numerical developments

In the context of demand-side management and geothermal energy production, our proposal is to store thermal energy in shallow alluvial aquifers at shorter frequencies than classical seasonal aquifer thermal energy storage. We first conducted a one-week experiment in a shallow alluvial aquifer, which is characterized by a slow ambient groundwater flow, to assess its potential for thermal energy storage and recovery. This experiment has shown that up to 90% of the stored thermal energy can be recovered and would therefore suggest that aquifer thermal energy storage could be considered for demand-side management applications. We then conceptualized, developed, and calibrated a deterministic 3D groundwater flow and heat transport numerical model representing our study site, and we simulated 77 different scenarios to further assess this potential. This has allowed us to demonstrate that low-temperature aquifer thermal energy storage (temperature differences of −4 K for precooling and 3, 6, and 11 K for preheating) is efficient with energy recovery rates ranging from 78 to 87%, in a single aquifer thermal energy storage cycle. High-temperature aquifer thermal energy storage (temperature differences between 35 and 65 K) presents lower energy recovery rates, from 53 to 71%, with all other parameters remaining equals. Energy recovery rates decrease with increasing storage duration and this decrease is faster for higher temperatures. Retrieving directly useful heat (without upgrading with a groundwater heat pump) using only a single storage and recovery cycle appears to be complicated. Nevertheless, there is room for aquifer thermal energy storage optimization in space and time with regard to improving both the energy recovery rates and the recovered absolute temperatures

EVALUATING POLICY AND CLIMATE IMPACTS ON WATER RESOURCES SYSTEMS USING COUPLED HUMAN-NATURAL MODELS

Extensive human intervention in the terrestrial hydrosphere means that virtually every river basin globally reflects the interaction between human and natural hydrologic processes. Thus, sustainable watershed management needs to not only account for the diverse ways humans benefit from the environment but also incorporate the impact of human actions on the natural system. Informed policy making to address our water challenges requires a comprehensive understanding of these feedbacks and how they might be affected by future changes in climate. This work develops coupled human-natural models for improved surface water and groundwater management in water-scarce regions under future changes in climate. An agent-based water use model is coupled with a physically-based groundwater model in an agricultural setting to compare groundwater management policies under varying climatic conditions. Shifting spatial scales to a watershed level, we couple a process-based distributed hydrologic model with an agent-based model to simulate the impacts of water management decisions on the food-water-energy-environment nexus in transboundary river basins. A stochastic weather generator is developed to produce a wide ensemble of future climate, changes in which can vary spatially and temporally, while incorporating low-frequency variability. The primary goal of this work is to advance modeling approaches that effectively represent heterogeneity within a water system, capture the linkage between society and hydrology, and account for future changes in climate