A System-Level Generic Model of Water Use at Power Plants and its Application to Regional Water Use Estimation
Author(s)
Rutberg, Michael Jacob
Delgado, Anna
Ghoniem, Ahmed F
Herzog, Howard J.
Date Issued
November 2011
Journal
Proceedings of the ASME 2011 International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition
Publisher
ASME International
Citation
Rutberg, Michael J., Anna Delgado, Howard J. Herzog, and Ahmed F. Ghoniem. “A System-Level Generic Model of Water Use at Power Plants and Its Application to Regional Water Use Estimation.” Proceedings of the ASME 2011 International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition, 11-17 November, 2011, ASME, 2011. © 2011 by ASME
Version
Final published version
Abstract
The withdrawal and consumption of water at electricity generation plants, mainly for cooling purposes, is a significant component of the energy water nexus in the US. The existing field data on US power plant water use, however, is of limited granularity and poor quality, hampering efforts to track industry trends and project future scenarios. Furthermore, there is a need for a common quantitative framework on which to evaluate the potential of the many technologies that have been proposed to reduce water use at power plants. To address these deficiencies, we have created a systemlevel generic model (S-GEM) of water use at power plants that applies to fossil, nuclear, geothermal and solar thermal plants, using either steam or combined cycles. The S-GEM is a computationally inexpensive analytical model that approximately reflects the physics of the key processes involved and requires a small number of input parameters; the outputs are water withdrawal and consumption intensity in liters per kilowatt-hour. © 2011 by ASME.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute for Data, Systems, and Society
MIT Energy Initiative
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1115/IMECE2011-63786
