A multi-criteria model analysis framework for assessing integrated water-energy system transformation pathways

Sustainable development objectives surrounding water and energy are interdependent, and yet the associated performance metrics are often distinct. Regional planners tasked with designing future supply systems therefore require multi-criteria analysis methods and tools to determine a suitable combination of technologies and scale of investments. Previous research focused on optimizing system development strategy with respect to a single design objective, leading to potentially negative outcomes for other important sustainability metrics. This paper addresses this limitation, and presents a flexible multi-criteria model analysis framework that is applicable to long-term energy and water supply planning at national or regional scales in an interactive setup with decision-makers. The framework incorporates a linear systems-engineering model of the coupled supply technologies and inter-provincial transmission networks. The multi-criteria analysis approach enables the specification of diverse decision-making preferences for disparate criteria, and leads to quantitative understanding of trade-offs between the resulting criteria values of the corresponding Pareto-optimal solutions. A case study of the water-stressed nation of Saudi Arabia explores preferences combining aspiration and reservation levels in terms of cost, water sustainability and electricity sector CO2 emissions. The analysis reveals a suite of trade-off solutions, in which potential integrated water-energy system configurations remain relatively ambitious from both an economic and environmental perspective. The results highlight the importance of identifying suitable tradeoffs between water and energy sustainability objectives during the formulation of coupled transformation strategies

Impacts of Groundwater Constraints on Saudi Arabia’s Low-Carbon Electricity Supply Strategy

Balancing groundwater depletion, socioeconomic development and food security in Saudi Arabia will require policy that promotes expansion of unconventional freshwater supply options, such as wastewater recycling and desalination. As these processes consume more electricity than conventional freshwater supply technologies, Saudi Arabia's electricity system is vulnerable to groundwater conservation policy. This paper examines strategies for adapting to long-term groundwater constraints in Saudi Arabia's freshwater and electricity supply sectors with an integrated modeling framework. The approach combines electricity and freshwater supply planning model across provinces to provide an improved representation of coupled infrastructure systems. The tool is applied to study the interaction between policy aimed at a complete phase-out of nonrenewable groundwater extraction and concurrent policy aimed at achieving deep reductions in electricity sector carbon emissions. We find that transitioning away from nonrenewable groundwater use by the year 2050 could increase electricity demand by more than 40% relative to 2010 conditions, and require investments similar to strategies aimed at transitioning away from fossil fuels in the electricity sector. Higher electricity demands under groundwater constraints reduce flexibility of supply side options in the electricity sector to limit carbon emissions, making it more expensive to fulfill climate sustainability objectives. The results of this analysis underscore the importance of integrated long-term planning approaches for Saudi Arabia's electricity and freshwater supply system

Future of solar energy in Saudi Arabia

The continued rise of electricity demand in Saudi Arabia means that power generation must expand. Conventional generation is a major cause of environmental pollution and negatively impacts human health through greenhouse gas emissions. It is therefore essential that an alternative method of generation is found that preserves the environment and health and would support existing conventional generation during peak hours. Saudi Arabia is geographically suitable because it is located in the so-called sun belt, which has led it to become one of the largest solar energy producers. Solar energy is a serious competitor to conventional generation when the indirect costs of fossil fuels are included. Thus, processing sunlight via photovoltaic cells is an important method of generating clean energy. This article proves that the cost of solar energy will be less than the cost of fossil fuel energy if the cost of the environmental and health damages is taken into account