(651d) Design and Operation of Renewable Energy Carrier Production Considering Energy-Water Nexus Connections

Due to rapid population growth, the stress put on energy and water resources is increasing rapidly around the world [1]. Therefore, there is a need to explicitly consider energy-water nexus connections when making infrastructure planning decisions for future energy systems. Moreover, humanity is now trying to reduce the amount of fossil fuels that it utilizes as feedstocks in energy systems and has begun to incorporate more solar and wind power into current energy systems. However, energy generated from solar and wind farms fluctuates, which in turn leads to intermittent power generation causing balancing challenges for the energy system as a whole [2]. Various commercialized large-scale energy storage devices, such as pumped hydro and compressed air storage, can alleviate these stressors, but their effectiveness is limited by topography and geology [3]. An alternative approach is to utilize renewable power, water and CO2 as feedstock, to produce renewable fuels or chemicals, so called dense energy carries that can be stored in pressure vessels or storage tanks to be combusted into power at a later time when there are energy intermittencies from renewable generators [4, 5].

In this work, we expand our previously developed mixed-integer programming framework for the simultaneous design and operation of novel energy systems containing renewable energy generators, battery storage devices, and dense energy carriers [5]. To this end, we explicitly consider the energy-water nexus connections that exist in the production and combustion of dense energy carriers and develop a holistic optimization framework that captures these tradeoffs. We illustrate the need to integrate these energy-water nexus connections through the use of a case study. We compare the production and shipment of dense energy carriers from regions with high solar and wind energy intensities (e.g. Texas) to regions with low intensities, (e.g. New York), with the production of renewable power generated and stored locally via battery banks in regions with low intensities.

References:

1. Nie, Y., Avraamidou, S., Xiao, X., Pistikopoulos, E. N., Li, J., Zeng, Y., Song, F., Yu, J., Zhu, M. (2019). A Food-Energy-Water Nexus approach for land use optimization. Science of The Total Environment, 659, 7-19.
2. Allen, R. C., Nie, Y., Avraamidou, S., & Pistikopoulos, E. N. (2019). Infrastructure Planning and Operational Scheduling for Power Generating Systems: An Energy-Water Nexus Approach. In Computer Aided Chemical Engineering (Vol. 47, pp. 233-238). Elsevier.
3. Wang, G., Mitsos, A., & Marquardt, W. (2017). Conceptual design of ammonia‐based energy storage system: System design and time‐invariant performance. AIChE Journal, 63(5), 1620-1637.
4. Palys, M. J., & Daoutidis, P. (2020). Using hydrogen and ammonia for renewable energy storage: A geographically comprehensive techno-economic study. Computers & Chemical Engineering, 106785.
5. Demirhan, C. D., Tso, W. W., Powell, J. B., Heuberger, C. F., & Pistikopoulos, E. N. (2020). A Multi-scale Energy Systems Engineering Approach for Renewable Power Generation and Storage Optimization. Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research.