L R AS Published on Sunday 15 December 2019 - n° 302 - Categories:various sectors
Wind/solar power plants reduce the water requirement of conventional power plants by 75 %.
Finnish researchers have compared the water needs of coal-fired and nuclear power plants with those of solar and wind power plants. To produce 1 MWh, solar PV uses between
2% and 15% of the water needs of these conventional power plants. Wind power uses only 0.1% to 14% of their water needs. This means that water consumption could be reduced by 75% by 2030 compared to 2015 levels.
The study is based on data collected from 13,863 thermal power plants of more than 50 MW, with a total capacity of 4,182 GW. This represents about 95.8% of the world's total thermal power generation capacity.
In 2015, the United States was the largest consumer of water for conventional power generation, with a share of 35.7%, followed by China with 31.5%.
PV Magazine of 12 December
