Clean Energy
The shift to any renewable energy has the potential to reduce pressure on water resources but can also create higher demands on water. Pathways to a clean energy transition require concerted action to reduce vulnerabilities of renewable energy grids to water and climate impacts.
The Challenge
Energy is the largest water user of all industrial sectors. Different pathways towards a low-emissions future have different implications for water use. Some low-emissions technologies such as biofuels, concentrated solar power, carbon capture or nuclear have high water requirements. Without efforts to reduce water use in these technologies as well as in fossil energy supply, a pathway to energy security and lower emissions could exacerbate water stress or be limited by it.
In some parts of the energy mix, water is a central component in generating, storing, or transferring such energy as hydropower and geothermal power or some hydrogen storage technologies. In others, like bioenergy production or thermal power plants (whether nuclear, concentrated solar, or coal-fired), it is an essential and high-volume requirement.
In many regions, climate change is projected to lower overall generation over the next several decades. In countries with relatively high dependence on hydropower, wetter and drier years are already having marked impacts on energy security and profitability on a yearly basis.
The viability of bioenergy and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage is entirely dependent on the availability of water and land and can have very significant implications on the use and consumption of water (Stenzel et al., 2022). Availability and efficiency of water use will largely determine where and how much bioenergy with carbon capture and storage can be sustainably produced.
Nearly 40% of the global hydro fleet is over 40 years old, and upgrades and retrofits will account for almost 45% of capacity growth between now and 2030. That means that there is a massive opportunity to modernize the global hydropower fleet with technologies that improve river connectivity and efficiency at once.
Solutions
Ensuring energy systems are water secure and climate resilient requires energy planning processes that consider critical dependencies and impacts on water systems (Weinberg et al., 2022).
To ensure energy systems are more resilient, it is critical for energy planners to ensure they assess water risks, impacts, and potential opportunities for options that place less pressure on freshwater ecosystems. This involves integrating analysis of projected demands, availability, and impacts on water as well as potential shifts in water availability caused by climate change into all low-emission energy transition plans taking place at national, regional, and local levels. This further requires investment in effective water management to buffer against the impacts of climate change on energy infrastructure and ensure the reliable supply of energy for development.
Investment, design and operation of hydropower should include focus on operations under climate change, and also measures to reduce emissions from hydropower reservoirs.
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