Building the Future of Water and Energy in California
Published on by Robert Brears, Founder of Our Future Water, Young Water Leaders, Mitidaption & Author (Springer Nature, Wiley) in Technology
CALIFORNIA IS GROWING. Our population growth remains steady, as more people want to live and work here each year. And our economy continues to expand at a rate that would be the envy of many states in our nation, not to mention nations around the world.
That growth comes with responsibilities, including the important task of ensuring the people of our state can continue to rely on the water and energy supplies and services that utilities in California provide. Water and energy utilities have long shared a symbiotic connection: the “Water-Energy Nexus.” Put simply, it takes a lot of water to make electricity and it takes a lot of electricity to pump, move and now, recycle and reuse water.
A Tesla battery bank project run by Advanced Microgrid Solutions, which is partnering with Inland Empire Utilities Agency.Advanced Microgrid Solutions
The Inland Empire Utilities Agency (IEUA) has grown from a supplemental water source for the Chino Basin to a wholesale water supplier and regional wastewater district serving 875,000 customers. To successfully manage that growth over time, we have maintained a 66-year history of innovation and efficiency. Now, as we work to build a sustainable future, we continue to search for innovative solutions.
As part of that search, IEUA’s board of directors made the decision to invest in renewable generation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, ensure energy cost savings and remove our facilities from the electric grid for peak power needs by 2020. Today, IEUA creates electricity with solar, wind and biofuel technology, producing more than half of the peak power demand for our wastewater treatment plants.
We have learned energy self-sustainability takes more than just making power – it takes management as well
Many organizations with similar goals understand that renewable power sources can be unpredictable – the sun must be shining to create solar energy and we need wind to drive turbines. We need to be able to store the power we generate, so that it can be used when customers and the grid need it most. We have learned energy self-sustainability takes more than just making power – it takes management as well.
With this challenge in mind, IEUA has considered energy storage for our needs. Recent developments in battery technology and energy storage business models have made storage an efficient solution to our energy challenges. Borrowing from the practice of storing water in reservoirs until we need it, IEUA teamed up with San Francisco-based Advanced Microgrid Solutions (AMS) to install state-of-the-art Tesla Energy batteries at our wastewater treatment plants in a first-of-its-kind system. The created “energy reservoirs” will store excess energy generated by our onsite power resources or directly from the electric grid and make it available to IEUAand the grid when needed.
A combination of battery storage and state-of-the-art analytics software is making electric grid “interdependence” between energy utilities and water agencies a reality. Interdependence means that grid system operators, utilities and customers can help create flat, base load blocks of predictable, cost-effective electric consumption that benefits everybody.
For IEUA, the partnership with AMS was simply the next logical step in seeking additional innovative ways to serve our region and our ratepayers.
The IEUA board has recognized where the relationship between water and energy can go and has worked to take all of IEUA’s renewable energy systems and have them work as a complete unit while producing cost savings and reducing our carbon footprint. IEUA is setting the pace on innovation and technology and is working to build on the water-energy nexus for future generations.
Attached link
https://www.newsdeeply.com/water/community/2016/11/23/building-the-future-of-water-and-energy-in-californiaMedia
Taxonomy
- Water Security
- Smart Meters
- Climate Change
- Climate Change Resilience
- Water-Energy Nexus
- Wind Energy
- Storage
- Smart Grid
- Renewable Energy
- Wind Energy
- Solar Power
- Solar, Wind, Biogas, hydropower
- Greenhouse Gas Reduction
- Smart Metering (AMI)
3 Comments
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APPLICATION OF DESALINATION TO RENEWABLE ENERGIES
INTEGRATED COMPLEX CSP SOLAR - BIOMASS- ORC GENERATION – DESALINATION
The present note has the purpose to introduce the Innovative Application of Thermal Desalination within integrated systems to produce electricity and desalinated water for potable use and/or industrial from renewable energy sources only.
The Application mainly consists in operating the desalination plant with heat at low thermal content, produced by an organic cycle generator (ORC), powered with hot diathermic oil heated by an hybrid solar thermodynamic (CSP) and biomass waste to energy system.
The integrated complex consists essentially of CSP thermodynamic solar field, biomass waste to energy plant with diathermic oil burner, ORC organic cycle generator CHP type (Combined Heat & Power) and MED thermal desalination plant.
The biomass energy section has the main purpose to compensate the discontinuity that characterizes the solar systems, in order to allow the continuous operation typical of the thermal Desalination plants.
To be noted that as alternative to the biomass , it could be used low grade fuels or wastes of various nature (“Hybrid solar waste to energy and water”).
In particular, the MED Desalination Plant can be designed to operate in combination with ORC-CHP generator models available on the market, operating with diathermic oil, with temperatures in/out of 300°C/240°C, and heating of cooling water from 75°C to 95°C (*). Such temperatures and Delta T of the cooling water, and the thermal power available from the ORC generator are perfectly fit to be combined with MED desalination plant of significant capacity. The net electrical efficiency is of 16-17%.
The table herein after is for instance of the production of desalinated water (distilled) which can be obtained by MED Plants combined to four different models ORC-CHP, among the most popular, related to the design performances of the MED Plant.
The table is referred to three possible reference performance values of the plant (GOR Equivalent) in terms of production related to the heat consumption, for fixed levels of heating water temperatures.
The value of "GOR Equivalent "(expressed in Kg of water produced water/kg of steam) can be selected in the range between the values 7 and 9 considered in the table, assumed as convenient for specific applications, and eventually outside of the range (of course the cost of the MED plant directly depends on the design GOR value).
In the conventional applications, the selection of the design GOR is mainly based on the cost of steam; in these particular applications, the selection of the design GOR is determined by relating the water and electric energy production and the relevant sales values, with the cost of the plants and in particular of the solar field.
ORC-CHP Models ORC –CHP Net Power Production (MW)
Oil temperature in/out 300°C/240°C
1 1,8 2,2 3
ORC-CHP Hot water thermal power (MW)
Water temperature in/out 75°C/95°C (*)
4 8 10 15
MED Desalination Plant DESALINATED WATER PRODUCTION (m3/h) approx.
GOR Equival.(Perfor. Ratio)
7 42 80 100 150
8 50 100 125 170
9 54 103 126 189
(*)Indicative values allowed by the manufacturer (different from those shown on the brochure).
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Sid, we at Ambient Water Inc. manufacture machines that generate clean, bacteria free water from the air. Generating water from the air is directly related to the surrounding temperature and humidity in the air. Places such as Southern California could well benefit and off-set their water woes by utilizing the Air-to-Water technology.
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The other way we have to deal with water is by creating water. Today California is venting into the atmosphere hundreds of thousands of gallons of water every day. This water is in the exhaust of combusted natural gas at large commercial sized buildings and by industry and at the electricity producing power plants. This water is coming down as rain in the midwest and on the east coast. We need it here!!
To get at this water the heat energy in the combusted exhaust needs to be removed. This is done with a Condensing Flue Gas Heat Recovery System. This recovered heat energy can then be utilized back in the building or facility where it was consumed or used to provide heat for another purpose. In every 1 million Btu's of combusted natural gas are 5 gallons of recoverable distilled water.
It is possible for a power plant to recover enough water from it's exhaust that it can be self supporting. If more is recovered it can even become a water supplier to the local community instead of being a water consumer.
For every 1 million Btu's of heat energy that is recovered from the exhaust and this recovered heat energy is utilized, 117 lbs of CO2 will not be put into the atmosphere. At some locations this can add up to be thousands of lbs per hour. Hour after hour, day after day, year after year, from a single room.