Tools for Modeling the

Water-Energy-Land-Climate Nexus
Jack Sieber and David Yates
WEAP Developer, SEI
www.weap21.org
Charlie Heaps
LEAP Developer, SEI
www.energycommunity.org
David Yates
Water and Energy Systems, NCAR

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 Talk Outline
What are LEAP and WEAP?
Brief overviews of LEAP and WEAP today
Vision for integrating LEAP and WEAP
Challenges in integrating LEAP and WEAP
Examples of issues that can be modeled
When will the new system be ready?

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 Water Evaluation And Planning Long range Energy Alternatives
System. Planning System.
Integrated watershed hydrology Integrated Energy Planning and
and water planning. GHG Mitigation Assessment.
www.weap21.org www.energycommunity.org

Both Tools:
General purpose model building, data management and scenario analysis tools.
Environmental engineering perspective on long-term resource allocation problems.
Integrated analysis across demand and supply.
Transparent, flexible and user-friendly with low initial data requirements.
Common code and modeling language.
Similar user interfaces and terminologies.
Closely coordinated Application Programming Interfaces.
Widely used in Governments, Universities, Consulting Companies, Utilities and NGOs:
100s of users worldwide.
Available at no charge to non-profit, academic and governmental institutions based in
developing countries. 3
 Structure & Calculations
Macro-
Demographics
Economics

Demand
Analysis

Statistical
Differences

Integrated Cost-Benefit Analysis

Environmental Loadings
(Pollutant Emissions)

Transformation
Analysis

Stock
Changes

Resource
Analysis

Non-Energy Sector
Emissions Analysis

Environmental
Externalities
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5
 Europes Share of the Climate Challenge
A joint project of SEI and Friends of the Earth
International for COP 15.
A detailed sector-by-sector mitigation scenario for all
27 EU countries developed that achieves GHG
reductions of 40% in 2020 and close to 90% in 2050
vs. 1990 levels.
Requires radical improvements in energy efficiency,
accelerated retirement of fossil fuels and a dramatic
shift toward renewables.
Excludes nuclear power, carbon capture and storage
(CCS), biofuels, and offsetting.
Examines the role of sufficiency and greater equity
among EU nations in helping promote a transition to a
low GHG future.
Also examines Europes international obligations by
using SEIs Greenhouse Development Rights
framework to assess fair contributions to a global
climate effort.
Report available at: www.ClimateShareEurope.org

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 Massachusetts Global Warming
Solutions Act (GWSA)
The GWSA requires
Massachusetts to achieve
GHG reductions of between
10% and 25% below 1990
levels by 2020 and 80% by
2050.
To help meet these goals the
State is using LEAP to develop
a new energy and climate
mitigation model that will
examine what policies can
best meet these targets.
The work is being conducted
by a team lead by The Eastern
Research Group (ERG) and
including staff from Synapse
Energy Economics, SEI, Abt
Associates and Cambridge
Systematics 7
 Energy Demand Analysis in LEAP
Households Urban Electrified Lighting Existing (80%, 400 kWh/yr)
(8 million) (30%) (100%) (100%) Efficient (20%, 300kWh/yr)

Refrigeration
(80%)

Cooking
Rural Electrified (100%)
(70%) (20%)
Other
(50%)
Non-Electrified
(80%)

Demands organized into a flexible hierarchical tree structure.

Typically organized by sector, subsector, end-use and device.
Icons indicate the types of data (e.g., categories,
technologies, fuels and environmental effects).
Users can edit the tree on-screen using standard editing
functions (copy, paste, drag & drop)
Structure can be detailed and end-use oriented, or aggregate
(e.g. sector by fuel).
Supports multiple methods (useful & final energy analysis,
stock turnover modeling, etc.)
 Transformation Analysis in LEAP Auxiliary Fuel Use

Energy conversion, transmission Output Process

Feedstock Fuel

and distribution, and resource Fuel (efficiency) Feedstock Fuel

extraction. Output Process

Feedstock Fuel

Fuel (efficiency) Feedstock Fuel

Demand-driven engineering-based Module

Dispatch
Feedstock Fuel
simulation. Output
Fuel
Process
(efficiency) Feedstock Fuel

Basic hierarchy: modules (sectors), Output Process

Feedstock Fuel

each containing one or more Fuel (efficiency) Feedstock Fuel

processes. Output
Fuel Process
(efficiency)
Feedstock Fuel

Feedstock Fuel

Each process has one or more

feedstock fuels and one or more Auxiliary Fuel Use

Co-Product
auxiliary fuels. Fuel (e.g Heat)

Calculates capacity expansion and

process dispatch, imports, exports
and primary resource
requirements, costs and
environmental loadings.
Primarily annual calculations plus
seasonal/time of dispatch for
electric systems.
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 Water Evaluation And Planning System

Integrated watershed hydrology and water planning

model
GIS-based, graphical drag & drop interface
Physical simulation of water demands and supplies
Additional simulation modeling: user-created variables,
modeling equations and links to spreadsheets, scripts &
other models
Scenario management capabilities
Groundwater, water quality, reservoir, hydropower and
financial modules
Results Displayed on the Map

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Scenario Explorer
Examples of WEAP Analyses
Sectoral demand analyses
Land use & climate change impacts on hydrology
Water conservation
Water rights and allocation priorities
Groundwater and streamflow simulations
Reservoir operations
Hydropower generation
Financial analysis
Pollution tracking
Ecosystem requirements
 Linking WEAP to Other Software
Customized/Programmed links
Groundwater flow and particle tracking models
MODFLOW, MODPATH
Surface water quality model
Qual2K
Semi-automated calibration
PEST
User-defined links to other models
California Department of Water Resources
Delta salinity model
East-Bay Municipal Utilities District
Reservoir operations model
Call WEAP using application programming interface (API)
Scenario analysis
CARS (RAND Corporation)
Model calibration
PEST
Sensitivity analysis, complex model building
Scripts: Visual Basic, Javascript, Python, Perl
 WEAP Applications
Water Systems Planning
Small Reservoirs Project, Ghana/Brazil
California Water Plan, California, USA
Guadiana River, Spain
Transboundary Water Policy
Okavango River, Angola/Namibia/Botswana
Lower Rio Grande, USA/Mexico
Mekong River, Thailand/Cambodia/Vietnam/Laos
Jordan River, Syria/Israel/Jordan
Climate Change Studies
Sacramento and San Joaquin River Basins, California, USA
Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, Massachusetts, USA
Yemen Second National Communication
Mali Second National Communication
Ecological Flows
Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection
Town of Scituate, Massachusetts, USA
Water Utility DSS Application
Case studies in Portland, Oregon; Austin, Texas; and Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania.
 Cross Currents:
Bringing Together Different Perspectives
Water Energy
Climate change is a key Energy systems drive
driver of water systems. climate change
Current focus is water Current focus is energy
sufficiency and climate sufficiency and climate
change adaptation. change mitigation.
Energy dimension provides Water dimension provides
new insights into mitigation new insights into how
potential in the water sector. climate adaptation will
affect energy systems.

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 Potential Applications
Hydropower
Cooling Water for
Thermal Energy Systems
Desalination
Water and Land-use for
Biofuels
Energy for Pumping
Integrating Mitigation
and Adaptation

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 Integrating LEAP & WEAP
Tightly coupled system where LEAP and WEAP run together
and are dynamically linked.
Each tool requests data or results from the other.
Calculations run iteratively within each year of each scenario
seeks convergence on a consistent set of results.
Requires common assumptions on:
Scenarios
Seasonal/time of day time slices
Geographic boundaries
E.g., base year, end year, discount rates, economic, demographic and
climate assumptions

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 Design Goals
Create a system that is flexible enough to
model a wide variety of energy-water issues.
Presents issues in a way that is clearly
understandable and meets the needs of both
energy and water planners.
Keep the systems easy to use for our existing
target audience.

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 Linking Water and Energy Issues
Groundwater depletion
Water quality Limited hydropower & cooling
Unmet ecological flows
Costs
water, increased energy
requirements for pumping.
Increased energy requirements
Insufficient water for hydro and
for desalination. Electricity demand
cooling, even with increased
groundwater pumping. Energy efficiency
Still insufficient water--further
enhance supply with
desalination. Water Energy
Supply Demand

Water Energy
Demand Supply Hydropower & fossil
Water requirements for generation
hydropower & thermal cooling Wind & solar, less water-
Water conservation intensive cooling
Hydropower energy &
cooling water requirements
Fuel Use
Reduced water demands GHGs
Local air pollution
Costs 20
Status

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Thanks

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