TITLE:
Energy Consumption in the Municipal Water Supply Sector in the Kingdom of Bahrain
AUTHORS:
Maryam Marzooq, Maha Alsabbagh, Waleed Al-Zubari
KEYWORDS:
Water-Energy Nexus, Specific Electric Energy Use, Water Distribution, Water Production, Water Transmission
JOURNAL NAME:
Computational Water, Energy, and Environmental Engineering,
Vol.7 No.3,
July
2,
2018
ABSTRACT: Water-energy nexus is an emerging issue that receives considerable
attention in the world in general and in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
countries in particular. The GCC countries depend mainly on energy generated
from fossil fuels to produce drinking water. Yet, the amount of water-related
energy use in Bahrain remains unexplored. This study aims to quantify the
amount of energy used in the water supply cycle for the first time in Bahrain
using quantitative methods. A bottom-up approach for data collection was
adopted where data for the three main stages of the water supply in Bahrain:
water production, water transmission, and water distribution were collected.
Results show that the water production stage consumes about 97% of the total
energy consumption in the water supply sector, followed by water transmission
(2.9%) and water distribution (0.1%). Comparisons conducted with best practices
in the world show that water desalination plants in Bahrain consume relatively
high amounts of energy to produce water based on the desalination technology
used. This study calls for focusing on the production stage in achieving energy
efficiency since it is the largest consumer and where losses are occurring based
on the benchmarking. This study also recommends investigating the share of
electricity and thermal energy consumed in the water supply cycle in Bahrain in
addition to the wastewater treatment sector. This is imperative to provide a
holistic overview of the water-related energy use in Bahrain.