Extending the Utility Analysis and Integration Model at the Energy Water Nexus

Abstract-In the coming decades, water utilities will be exposed to greater pressures. Some of these, like ageing infrastructure, and decreasing availability of public funds are old but set to intensify. And yet others like energy efficiency, climate change, and resilience in smart cities are emerging drivers. A conceptual reference business model (Utility Analysis and Integration Model, or UAIM) that defines the essential aspects of utility performance and provides a structure that allows utilities to accelerate and sustain overall performance improvement was introduced to provide tools for improving the overall utility performance prompting reliance on the individual talents and extensive experience of utility managers in the industry. The UAIM seeks to leverage the significant improvements in local performance, aided by diverse technologies and automation (e.g. software, IT systems) that target specific user groups and business processes within a utility. The UAIM concepts of People, Process, and Technology overlaid with Strategic, Technical and Operational dimensions can provide powerful insight into operations of an infrastructure enterprise at a microlevel or intra-utility perspective. As we seek to solve increasingly complex infrastructure challenges which span multiple sectors (water, wastewater, energy, solid waste, etc.), the UAIM can be extended to a cross-sector perspectiv

Energy and Smart Growth: It's about How and Where We Build

By efficiently locating development, smarter growth land use policies and practices offer a viable way to reduce U.S. energy consumption. Moreover, by increasing attention on how we build, in addition to where we build, smart growth could become even more energy smart. The smart growth and energy efficiency movements thus are intrinsically linked, yet these two fields have mostly operated in separate worlds. Through greater use of energy efficient design, and renewable energy resources, the smart growth movement could better achieve its goals of environmental protection, economic security and prosperity, and community livability. In short, green building and smart growth should go hand in hand. Heightened concern about foreign oil dependence, climate change, and other ill effects of fossil fuel usage makes the energy-smart growth collaboration especially important. Strengthening this collaboration will involve overcoming some hurdles, however, and funders can play an important role in assisting these movements to gain strength from each other. This paper contends there is much to be gained by expanding the smart growth movement to include greater attention on energy. It provides a brief background on current energy trends and programs, relevant to smart growth. It then presents a framework for understanding the connections between energy and land use which focuses on two primary issues: how to build, which involves neighborhood and building design, and where to build, meaning that location matters. The final section offers suggestions to funders interesting in helping accelerate the merger of these fields

Energy Access and Electricity Planning

As developing countries look for ways to achieve sustainable energy services, which is essential to lift people out of poverty, the big challenge centers around providing access for all while avoiding past pitfalls without creating new ones. The reality is that this can only occur if there is a fundamental transformation of energy systems along the entire set of resource to energy service chains - and that will necessitate greater energy efficiency and a bigger role for renewables in the global energy mix energy. Competitive and private sector dominated energy markets rely on clear and consistent government energy-environment policies to align their investment decisions with sustainable development objectives. This paper tries to shed light on how developing countries can carry out energy planning by reviewing the available methodologies and tools, including their potential to integrate rural energy access and encourage the uptake of renewable energy technologies. It also probes how investment needs and cost-effectiveness are reflected in different analytic and planning tools - with a case study on Ethiopia. And it examines the interaction of energy planning and scenario development and how these are applied to informed policy making. The findings suggest that energy planning is essential and feasible. However, support is required to improve data collection and access, develop open accessible modelling tools, and build sustainable national capacity to undertake plannin

A review on the complementarity of renewable energy sources: concept, metrics, application and future research directions

It is expected, and regionally observed, that energy demand will soon be covered by a widespread deployment of renewable energy sources. However, the weather and climate driven energy sources are characterized by a significant spatial and temporal variability. One of the commonly mentioned solutions to overcome the mismatch between demand and supply provided by renewable generation is a hybridization of two or more energy sources in a single power station (like wind-solar, solar-hydro or solar-wind-hydro). The operation of hybrid energy sources is based on the complementary nature of renewable sources. Considering the growing importance of such systems and increasing number of research activities in this area this paper presents a comprehensive review of studies which investigated, analyzed, quantified and utilized the effect of temporal, spatial and spatio-temporal complementarity between renewable energy sources. The review starts with a brief overview of available research papers, formulates detailed definition of major concepts, summarizes current research directions and ends with prospective future research activities. The review provides a chronological and spatial information with regard to the studies on the complementarity concept.Comment: 34 pages 7 figures 3 table

Feasibility, and Resiliency, and Economic Impacts of Energy Storage in Urban Water Systems: Case Study of Cleveland, Tennessee

This research reduces the knowledge gap around how the water-energy nexus can be applied at the urban level, clarifying how a city water distribution system might be used to offset community energy consumption. The created methodology includes 3 research objectives. First, model scenarios are developed to determine opportunities for energy storage in urban water systems. Then, how increased energy storage capacity impacts water system resiliency is examined. Finally, the financial implications of scenarios are calculated.A closed-loop water system model (EPANET2) simulates Cleveland, Tennessee’s water distribution system, resolved to the neighborhood scale. Sectoral aggregated hourly energy use data provides a comparison baseline for storage scenarios. Storage is injected into the water model in concentrated and distributed configurations to understand which is more effective at shaving peak energy demands, and which is more effective at increasing water system resiliency. Configurations are assigned costs, to understand how feasible it is to increase energy storage in water systems over local utility planning and financing horizons.Key findings include: (1) concentrated water storage configurations can generate significantly more electricity than distributed storage configurations, because they can be designed primarily for energy generation, not primarily to meet demand and to maintain pressure; (2) distributed water storage configurations can be more resilient to the chronic stress of population growth, because increasing storage throughout the water system is more effective at maintaining water system pressures and meeting increasing demand; and (3) neither concentrated nor distributed water storage configurations are cost effective within local utility planning and financing horizons, because the payback periods far exceed that 20-year timeframe.This research fills a knowledge gap around the scale at which small pumped hydro-generation systems can be effective at reducing community electrical demands. It clarifies the impacts of various storage configurations on water system resiliency, and how fiscally solvent using the water system to store energy might be. It concludes that small-scale hydro in an urban water system is viable at the micro-scale on a case by case basis, but not fiscally feasible as a tool to shave peak community energy demands

Gaining Depth: State of Watershed Investment 2014

Last year, governments, businesses, and donors channeled $12.3 billion (B) toward nature-based solutions to the global water crisis. Water users and public funders were paying land managers to repair and protect forests, wetlands, and other natural systems as a flexible, costeffective strategy to ensure clean and reliable water supplies, resilience to natural disasters, and sustainable livelihoods. These deals paid for watershed protection and restoration across more than 365 million (M) hectares (ha) worldwide in 2013, an area larger than India.The value of investment in watershed services1 (IWS) - referring to funding for watershed restoration or protection that delivers benefits to society like aquifer recharge or erosion control - has been growing at anaverage rate of 12% per year. The number of operational programs grew by two thirds between 2011 and 2013, expanding in both scale and sophistication as program developers introduced new tools to track returns on watershed investment, coordinated efforts across political boundaries, and delivered additional benefits like sustainable livelihoods and biodiversity protection