Editor’s choice
Editor’s choice
This paper describes a platform for assessing power plant cooling water withdrawals and consumption under different electricity pathways at geographic and time scales appropriate for both electricity and hydrology/water management.
Hydrology/water management and electricity generation projections have been modeled separately, but there has been little effort in intentionally and explicitly linking the two sides of the water–energy nexus. This paper describes a platform to do so. The platform uses estimates of regional electricity generation by the Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) as input to a hydrologic and water management model—the Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) system.
In WEAP, this electricity use represents thermoelectric cooling water withdrawals and consumption within the broader, regional water resource context. Here we describe linking the electricity and water models, including translating electricity generation results from ReEDS-relevant geographies to the water-relevant geographies of WEAP. The result of this analysis is water use by the electric sector at the regional watershed level, which is used to examine the water resource implications of these electricity pathways.
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Press release / Development is underway for a digital version of the Nature Tool, designed to assess nature-related risks and opportunities across agricultural sourcing.
SEI report / This document offers a snapshot of the electric transmission sector in Colombia as of 2025.
Event on 01 July – 15 July / SEI scientists will host a four-day training on WEAP, SEI's flagship water modelling software, in July. Register today.
