What do you believe is the single most important factor driving up the cost of living in Nigeria?

Stanford-led research reveals how water systems, from desalination plants to wastewater treatment facilities, could help make renewable energy more affordable and dependable. The study, published Sept. 27 in Nature Water, presents a framework to measure how water systems can adjust their energy use to help balance power grid supply and demand.

"If we're going to reach net zero, we need demand-side energy solutions, and water systems represent a largely untapped resource," said study lead author Akshay Rao, an environmental engineering Ph.D. student in the Stanford School of Engineering.

"Our method helps water operators and energy managers make better decisions about how to coordinate these infrastructure systems to simultaneously meet our decarbonization and water reliability goals."

As grids rely more on renewable energy sources like wind and solar, balancing energy supply and demand becomes more challenging. Typically, energy storage technologies like batteries help with this, but batteries are expensive. An alternative is to promote demand-side flexibility from large-load consumers like water conveyance and treatment providers.

Water systems—which use up to 5% of the nation's electricity—could offer similar benefits to batteries by adjusting their operations to align with real-time energy needs, according to Rao and his co-authors.

• Read More