Wind Energy for Municipal Water Supply
Municipal water service providers face several challenges, including providing clean, reliable water supplies at low cost, wastewater treatment, and managing environmental risks. Water supply salinity, contaminant concentrations, surface water quality and groundwater withdrawal rates all play a role in these challenges. Opportunities for matching wind potential, water availability and water needs are being modeled through Geographical Information Systems (GIS) modeling. Results of the modeling will quantitatively describe the range of potential wind energy applications where various water needs exist and point out utility areas that may be good candidates for selected wind-water applications. Urban, agricultural, and industrial water services that may be served by wind generation are included. In subsequent studies, the results of the first phase-identifying promising opportunities and initial case studies-will be combined with the identification of technical and other issues, to develop detailed situation analyses to more fully characterize the application of wind generation for pumping and transporting water in the municipal sector.
Related Information
To read more about wind energy for municipal water supply click on the links to project examples, organizations, and publications below.
Wind/Municipal Water Project Examples
- Atlantic County Utilities Authority, New Jersey
- U.S. Department of Energy State Energy Program 2005 projects:
Organizations
- American Water Works Association Research Foundation Research Programs
- Bureau of Reclamation Desalination and Water Purification Research and Development Program
- Tularosa Basin National Research Center for Desalination of Brackish Groundwater
Publications
Some of the following documents are available as Adobe Acrobat PDFs. Download Adobe Reader.
GE and New Mexico State University desalination partnership
- "GE partners with university on desal project," Water Tech Online, November 29, 2006
- "Domenici says NMSU-GE Partnership Heightens Focus on N.M. for Water Availability Answers," Office of Senator Pete Domenici, October 24, 2006
- NMSU, GE working on agreement for water research collaboration," New Mexico University Press Release, September 13, 2006.
- "Integrated Wind Energy/Desalination System," GE Global Research, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, October 2006. NREL/SR-500-39485. (PDF 3.6 MB)
- "Desalination May Be Best Hope to Slake World's Thirst," New Scientist, June 30, 2006.
- "DOE Touts Windpower," Inside EPA's Water Policy Report, Vol. 15, No. 9, May 1, 2006.
- Wind Energy Applications for Municipal Water Services: Opportunities, Situation Analyses, and Case Studies; Preprint. January 2006 (PDF 2 MB)
- "Wind and Water: Redeveloping Regional Resources for the New Economy." Texas Tech University Economic Development Summit, 2005. (PDF 1.3 MB)
- Desalination and Water Purification Technology Roadmap; A Report of the Executive Committee. Sandia National Laboratories; U.S. Department of Interior Bureau of Reclamation. DWPR Program #95. January 2003. (PDF 1.1 MB)
- "Chino (CA) Adopts New Pollution Management Technology" U.S. Mayors Session on Watershed Management Focuses on Solutions by Madeline Ostrander, April 15 2002.