GDF Suez says renewables save valuable water resources

• 11 years ago (2013-04-24)
• Junior Isles

Asia 892 North America 1021 Renewables 776

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Renewable generation including wind and solar PV potentially use 100 times less water than fossil fuel plants, according to the chief climate and sustainability analyst at French utility GDF Suez SA.

“Most renewables, use maybe two orders of magnitude less water,” Amit Pathare said at a conference in New York. “It’s not comparable to the amount of water used for fossil fuels.”

Turbines and solar panels require substantially less water than that needed for cooling coal, oil or natural gas fired plants, Pathare said. The recent trend toward hydraulic fracturing to tap unconventional petroleum deposits also requires huge water resources, he noted.

China’s power generation industry consumes nearly half the world’s coal and has diverted an “extremely expensive” resource to meet its water need. It is even increasing its reliance on energy intensive desalination plants to better balance its energy and water needs, Pathare said.

“From the water-supply standpoint, they’re exploring all sorts of ways,” he said. “From the water-demand perspective, they will continue to grow with thermal generation, but that’s the other advantage of diversifying away from thermal generation.”

Water supply considerations are most critical in dry, high population regions in the developing world. Renewables may offer a better opportunity to relax the constraint currently imposed by the scarcity of water on power infrastructure development and economic growth in general.