Abstract
Thermoelectric power plants often depend on multipurpose reservoirs to supply cooling water. Although reservoirs buffer natural hydrologic variability, severe droughts can deplete storage below critical thresholds, or to levels at which the effluent water temperature exceeds the environmental compliance requirement for cooling. This study explores the effects of projected climate change and drought on water storage at 30 major reservoirs in Texas. These reservoirs collectively provide cooling water for about two thirds of thermoelectric power capacity in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) power grid. Multi-ensemble runoff projections generated from eleven downscaled hydroclimate simulations are mapped to key watersheds to create spatially correlated multi-reservoir inflow sequences. These data are used to drive reservoir storage simulations, which are linked to a metric of “capacity-at-risk” using critical reservoir thresholds. We find that projected impacts of climate change are mixed, with results indicating an increase in the occurrence of thermal disruption under only half of climate models. A critical threshold of 30% storage volume—applied to all reservoirs—results in disruption to about one fifth of ERCOT thermal generation during the most severe projected droughts. The study highlights an important role for detailed reservoir behavior simulations for capturing the effects of drought and climate change on thermoelectric plant performance.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 120892 |
| Journal | Energy |
| Volume | 231 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Sep 15 2021 |
Funding
The research was supported under Subcontract 1968666 to Sandia National Laboratories as part of the “Energy and Water Modeling in the Western and Texas Interconnects” project for the US Department of Energy, Office of Electricity Energy Resilience Devision . This work was authored by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, managed by Battelle (contract no. DE-AC05-76RL01830) for the US Department of Energy. An open-source tool that can be used to replicate and review all assumptions available on GitHub ( https://github.com/pnnl/capratTX ). All reservoir, generator, and stream network data used to perform this analysis are publicly available through the Texas Water Development Board [ 26 ], Energy Information Administration (EIA, 2020), and US Environmental Protection Agency [ 27 ], respectively. These input data are combined in a single repository ( https://zenodo.org/record/4273147 ) and organized for direct application in capratTX—our supporting software tool. The research was supported under Subcontract 1968666 to Sandia National Laboratories as part of the ?Energy and Water Modeling in the Western and Texas Interconnects? project for the US Department of Energy, Office of Electricity Energy Resilience Devision. This work was authored by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, managed by Battelle (contract no. DE-AC05-76RL01830) for the US Department of Energy. An open-source tool that can be used to replicate and review all assumptions available on GitHub (https://github.com/pnnl/capratTX). All reservoir, generator, and stream network data used to perform this analysis are publicly available through the Texas Water Development Board [26], Energy Information Administration (EIA, 2020), and US Environmental Protection Agency [27], respectively. These input data are combined in a single repository (https://zenodo.org/record/4273147) and organized for direct application in capratTX?our supporting software tool.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Office of Electricity Energy Resilience Devision | |
| U.S. Department of Energy | |
| U.S. Environmental Protection Agency | |
| Battelle | DE-AC05-76RL01830 |
| Texas Water Development Board | |
| Energy Information Administration |
Keywords
- Drought
- ERCOT
- Power grid
- Reservoir
- Thermoelectric
- Water
