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Water scarcity and climate change are dual challenges that could potentially threaten energy security. Yet, integrated water–carbon management frameworks coupling diverse water- and carbon-mitigation technologies at high spatial heterogeneity are largely underdeveloped. Here we build a global unit-level framework to investigate the CO₂ emission and energy penalty due to the deployment of dry cooling—a critical water mitigation strategy—together with alternative water sourcing and carbon capture and storage under climate scenarios. We find that CO₂ emission and energy penalty for dry cooling units are location and climate specific (for example, 1–15% of power output), often demonstrating notably faster efficiency losses thanmore » rising temperature, especially under the high climate change scenario. Despite energy and CO₂ penalties associated with alternative water treatment and carbon capture and storage utilization, increasing wastewater and brine water accessibility provide potential alternatives to dry cooling for water scarcity alleviation, whereas CO₂ storage can help to mitigate dry cooling-associated CO₂ emission tradeoffs when alternative water supply is insufficient. By demonstrating an integrative planning framework, our study highlights the importance of integrated power sector planning under interconnected dual water–carbon challenges.« less

China’s power system is highly regulated and uses an “equal-share” dispatch approach. However, market mechanisms are being introduced to reduce generation costs and improve system reliability. Here, we quantify the climate and human health impacts brought about by this transition, modeling China’s power system operations under economic dispatch. We find that significant reductions in mortality related to air pollution (11%) and CO₂ emissions (3%) from the power sector can be attained by economic dispatch, relative to the equal-share approach, through more efficient coal-powered generation. Additional health and climate benefits can be achieved by incorporating emission externalities in electricity generation costs.more » However, the benefits of the transition to economic dispatch will be unevenly distributed across China and may lead to increased health damage in some regions. Our results show the potential of dispatch decision-making in electricity generation to mitigate the negative impacts of power plant emissions with existing facilities in China.« less

Renewable energy is poised to play a major role in achieving China's carbon neutrality goal by 2060; however, reliability and flexibility is a big concern of a renewable-dominant power system. Various strategies of enhancing flexibility are under discussion to ensure the reliability of such a system, but no detailed quantitative analysis has been reported yet in China. We combine the advantages of a capacity expansion model, SWITCH-China, with a production simulation model, PLEXOS, and analyze flexibility options under different scenarios of a renewable-dominant power system in China. We find that a larger balancing area offers direct flexibility benefits. Regional balancingmore » could reduce the renewable curtailment rate by 5-7%, compared with a provincial balancing strategy. National balancing could further reduce the power cost by about 16%. However, retrofitting coal power plants for flexible operation would only improve the system flexibility marginally.« less

The current Figs. 1 and 2 have incorrect numbers shown on the purple bars. The source data was also incorrect in the original version of the Article. This has been corrected in both the PDF and HTML versions of the Article.