• Energy Research

This dataset comprises synthetic residential electricity demand profiles at 1-minute resolution for full-year simulations across four cities: Oldenburg and Karlsruhe (Germany), and Auckland and Christchurch (New Zealand). The profiles were generated using the residential load simulator resLoadSIM (developed by the European Commission), which models appliance-level electricity demand based on occupant behaviour, appliance ownership, and statistical usage patterns. For each city, one reference scenario (reflecting the current energy mix) and four future scenarios (representing varying levels of electrification in space heating and electric vehicle adoption) are included. All profiles are city-aggregated and span 525,600 time steps, using 2022 weather data.

The US power sector is a leading contributor of emissions that affect air quality and climate. It also requires a lot of water for cooling thermoelectric power plants. Although these impacts affect ecosystems and human health unevenly in space and time, there has been very little quantification of these environmental trade-offs on decision-relevant scales. This work quantifies hourly water consumption, emissions (i.e., carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur oxides), and marginal heat rates for 252 electricity generating units (EGUs) in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) region in 2011 using a unit commitment and dispatch model (UC&D). Annual, seasonal, and daily variations, as well as spatial variability are assessed. When normalized over the grid, hourly average emissions and water consumption intensities (i.e., output per MWh) are found to be highest when electricity demand is the lowest, as baseload EGUs tend to be the most water and emissions intensive. Results suggest that a large fraction of emissions and water consumption are caused by a small number of power plants, mainly baseload coal-fired generators. Replacing 8-10 existing power plants with modern natural gas combined cycle units would result in reductions of 19-29%, 51-55%, 60-62%, and 13-27% in CO2 emissions, NOx emissions, SOx emissions, and water consumption, respectively, across the ERCOT region for two different conversion scenarios.

Abstract Purpose of Review  Cities are crucial for an effective energy transition, yet national transition exercises often overlook local urban conditions. This paper reviews the assessment of hydrogen integration in urban energy system models and the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to facilitate high spatial resolution modelling. Recent Findings Embedded GIS frameworks can unmask local conditions crucial for energy transition planning, providing valuable insights to support informed decision-making. We found a gap in holistic modelling of the hydrogen supply chain and sector coupling. Furthermore, most studies lack future cost projections, and GIS is often underutilised. We also detected a general lack of transparency and low temporal resolution. Summary This review assesses urban hydrogen integration, highlighting how geospatial approaches are used to addresses the lack of local information in recent energy system modelling, Future research should enhance GIS use, integrate sector coupling, and improve transparency and temporal resolution to better understand the optimal integration of hydrogen.

Abstract The decarbonization of regional electricity systems is a critical enabler of broader economy-wide decarbonization strategies and has motivated robust research on how to decarbonize electricity systems at minimum monetary cost. Since these efforts often focus on the operation of electricity systems, however, they do not account for emissions of the full life cycle associated with different resources. Different resource mixes can achieve a similar level of apparent decarbonization through operational emissions, while achieving very different levels of life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions. To explore these differences, we model the expansion of the California electricity system from 2030 to 2045 using a simplified electricity dispatch model to investigate how the planning of future electricity systems may differ between prioritizing minimum cost versus minimum life cycle GHG emissions under a common target for operational GHG reductions. We find that explicitly planning for minimum life cycle GHG emissions yields an additional 1.6%–2.0% reduction in annual life cycle GHG emissions at a cost penalty of 5.1%–6.9% and that electricity resource mixes that minimize life cycle GHG emissions tend to favor high capacity factor zero-carbon resources and long-duration storage compared to a minimum cost approach. Comparatively, we find that aggressive supply chain decarbonization of generation and storage technologies reduces life cycle GHG emissions of electricity supplies by 3.0% to 14% and combining both increases these reductions to 5.0% to 16%. Further, we find that applying a carbon tax to minimum cost-based capacity expansion can incentivize planning to account for life cycle GHG emissions. Our results indicate that a planning approach focused on minimizing life cycle GHG emissions may not be palatable, but significant reductions in life cycle emissions can be realized through conventional mechanisms like carbon taxes, import standards, and targeted supply chain decarbonization.

Abstract The US power sector is in a state of transition, prompted by significant shifts in technological innovations, energy markets, regulatory structures, and social pressures. As the electricity generation fleet changes, so too does the spatial & temporal distribution of the cooling water requirements for power plants. However, to date, these impacts have yet to be quantified. This study uses power plant-specific fuel consumption, generation, and cooling water use data to assess changes in the water withdrawn and consumed by thermoelectric power plants across 8-digit Hydrologic Unit Code (HUC-8) watersheds between 2008 and 2014. During this period, a few prominent trends are noted, including transitions in generation from coal-fired steam to natural-gas combined cycle units, from once-through cooling to wet recirculating towers and dry cooling systems, and from traditional fresh and saline surface cooling water to reclaimed water and groundwater sources. Total US cooling water withdrawals and consumption volume decreased from 2008 to 2014. The average water withdrawn per unit of electrical output decreased over this time, while changes in water consumption rates stayed relatively flat. Changes in water use at the watershed scale were unevenly distributed, as some water-scarce regions experienced increases in cooling water usage for thermal power plants, while others experienced significant water reductions and environmental benefits, especially where coal-fired generation was retired or retrofitted. The results from this study underscore the importance of evaluating water withdrawals and consumption at local spatial scales, as the water extraction, water quality and environmental health consequences of power plants on downstream users are non-uniform.

This descriptor contains datasets and scripts used for the analysis of global water and carbon footprints of electricity from 1990 to 2018. Here we present the scripts used for data collection, cleaning, and analysis as well as the completed databases of country, regional, and continental-scale water and carbon footprints over the 29-year period.

Developing strategies to reduce the air quality and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with power generation has been a priority across environmental and research communities for many years. Likewise, reducing the freshwater impacts of the power sector has become of increasing interest, prompted by water-stress and heat waves in many regions of the United States. However, there has been very little quantification of the environmental trade-offs between water consumption and air emissions in the power generating industry. Without simultaneously evaluating these environmental variables, solutions aimed to address one environmental priority might lead to unintended consequences in the other. Bridging this research gap will provide a more holistic perspective on the environmental trade-offs associated with electricity generation. This study investigates environmental tradeoffs in the electricity generation sector by quantifying the temporally-resolved water use and emissions rates of power plants within the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the independent system operator that governs the provision of electricity for the majority of Texas. A unit commitment and dispatch model, which simulates the cost-minimized dispatching algorithm used by ERCOT, is used to quantify hourly data in terms of water consumption, emissions (i.e. carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur oxides), and marginal heat rates for 252 electric generation units in ERCOT across a sample historical year. Annual, seasonal, and daily variations are assessed. The results of this study are intended to inform more balanced decision making and environmental assessments for the power generation sector moving forward.

There are water consequences across every life cycle stage of coal‐fired electricity consumption, from production and processing to combustion, which have not been studied with regional specificity. There is often a spatial decoupling between where coal is produced and processed versus where it is combusted for power generation, complicating any analysis to estimate the life cycle water implications of electricity consumption. Furthermore, electricity generated by coal‐fired power plants can be consumed within its own balancing authority or exported to another balancing authority. This analysis spatially resolves the water consumed and water withdrawn for coal mining, coal preparation, and power plant cooling from 1) where the coal is mined to where the coal is burned for power production and 2) where the electricity is generated to where the electricity is consumed. Although the largest portion of coal consumed came from the Northern Great Plains province, coal from this region consumes the least amount of water for mining and preparation compared with other provinces. Water withdrawals for cooling power plants within each balancing authority are driven by cooling technology. Due to the interconnected grid, there can be differences between attributing water footprint at the producer level versus the consumer level.