Page - 9 - in Clean Water Using Solar and Wind - Outside the Power Grid

Water and energy – for all 9 use huge amounts of water for cooling (Olsson, 2015, Chapter 13). Both water withdrawal and water consumption are significant. The beauty of renewables is that they dramatically reduce not only the carbon footprint but also the water footprint. Solar PV and wind consume up to 200 times less water than conventional options (IRENA, 2015b). Substantial water savings are already being realised. Solar PV has a very low water footprint since water is not used for electricity generation. The water requirement, estimated at 118 litres/MWh, comes from the manufacturing of the PV cells and maintenance of modules (WEC, 2016, Chapter 8). Wind energy is certainly a low-carbon source, and the turbines have no water requirement during operation. 1.4.2 Small-scale renewables We will address the key issues – clean water and energy for all – and show the enormous potential of renewable energy, made possible by the technical developments of recent years. Around the world, low- carbon renewable energy is emerging as the go-to-green growth and poverty reduction strategy. The development of inexpensive solar and wind technology is considered a potential alternative, providing an electricity infrastructure consisting of a network of local-grid clusters with distributed electricity generation. This makes it possible to become independent of long-distance, centralised power-delivery systems. The emphasis in this book is to demonstrate how decentralised power from renewable sources and decentralised water supply and used water treatment offer new possibilities and hope for the un-privileged people left outside the advanced systems of today. Renewables offer viable, affordable and scalable solutions. They are at the core of any strategy to meet climate goals while supporting economic growth, welfare, domestic value creation and employment generation. The potential of renewables is there for every country to harness. A major advantage of solar PV is that there isn’t any minimal or maximal project size; it can be scaled to match the user load size and type. Solar PV can be used to power systems from the very small in size up to residential systems and utility-scale projects, ranging from Solar PV and wind energy have a very low water footprint. Downloaded from https://iwaponline.com/ebooks/book-pdf/520710/wio9781780409443.pdf by IWA Publishing user