Abstract
Despite the coupled nature of water and electricity demand, the two utilities
are often managed by different entities with minimal interaction. Neglecting
the water-energy demand nexus leads to to suboptimal management decisions,
particularly under climate change. Here, we leverage state-of-the-art machine
learning and contemporary climate analogs to project the city-level coupled
water and electricity demand of 46 major U.S. cities into the future. The
results show that many U.S. cities may experience an increase in electricity
(water) demand of up to 20% (15%) due to climate change under a high emissions
scenario, with a clear north-south gradient. In the absence of appropriate
mitigation strategies, these changes will likely stress current infrastructure,
limiting the effectiveness of the ongoing grid decarbonization efforts. In the
event that cities are unable to match the increasing demand, there may be
increased occurrence of supply shortages, leading to blackouts with
disproportionate impacts on vulnerable populations. As such, reliable
projections of future water and electricity demand under climate change are
critical not only for preventing further exacerbation of the existing
environmental injustices but also for more effective design and execution of
climate change mitigation and adaptation plans.
Citation
ID:
281649
Ref Key:
kumar2023contemporary