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An integrated assessment of water-energy and climate change in Sacramento, California: How strong is the nexus?

This paper is among the first to report on the full integration of basin-scale models that include projections of the demand and supply of water and energy for residential, commercial, industrial, and agricultural sector users.

Charles Heaps, Jack Sieber, David Purkey, Sebastian Vicuna / Published on 21 July 2015

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Citation

Dale, L.L., N. Karali, D. Millstein, M. Carnall, S. Vicuña, N. Borchers, E. Bustos, J. O’Hagan, D. Purkey, C. Heaps, J. Sieber, W.D. Collins, M.D. Sohn (2015). An integrated assessment of water-energy and climate change in Sacramento, California: How strong is the nexus?. Climatic Change, online 14 July 2015.

The authors link two widely used regional planning models, WEAP and LEAP, to study the impact of rising climate variability on water and electricity use in Sacramento, California. Historical data, combined with the current energy and water system configuration, were used to assess the implications of changes in temperature and precipitation.

Climate simulations suggest that electricity imports to the region would increase during hot dry spells, when regional power production is most constrained. In particular, regional imports of electricity would increase over 35% in hot dry years, assuming a 4°C increase in average temperature and a 25% decrease in average precipitation.

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SEI authors

2018 portrait of Charlie Heaps
Charles Heaps

Senior Scientist

SEI US

Profile picture of Jack Sieber
Jack Sieber

Senior Scientist

SEI US

David Purkey

Centre Director

SEI Latin America

Profile picture of Sebastian Vicuna
Sebastian Vicuna

SEI Affiliated Researcher

SEI Latin America

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10.1007/s10584-015-1370-x Closed access
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