Watts and Drops: Co-Scheduling Power and Water in Desalination Plants

Alahmed, Ahmed S.; Botterud, Audun; Amin, Saurabh; Al-awami, Ali T.

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/130267 Copy

Description

Title

Watts and Drops: Co-Scheduling Power and Water in Desalination Plants

Author(s)

• Alahmed, Ahmed S.
• Botterud, Audun
• Amin, Saurabh
• Al-awami, Ali T.

Issue Date

2025-09-17

Keyword(s)

• Reverse-osmosis
• Thermal desalination
• Renewable energy
• Water-energy nexus

Abstract

We develop a mathematical framework to jointly schedule water and electricity in a profit-maximizing, renewable-colocated water desalination plant that integrates both thermal- and membrane-based technologies. The price-taking desalination plant sells desalinated water to a water utility at a given price and engages in bi-directional electricity transactions with the grid, purchasing or selling power based on its net electricity demand. We show that the optimal scheduling policy depends on the plant’s internal renewable generation and follows a simple threshold structure. Under the optimal policy, thermal-based water output decreases monotonically with renewable output, while membrane-based water output increases monotonically. We characterize the structure and intuition behind the threshold policy and examine key special properties.

Publisher

Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing

Series/Report Name or Number

2025 61st Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing Proceedings

ISSN

2836-4503

Type of Resource

Text

Genre of Resource

Conference Paper/Presentation

Language

eng

Handle URL

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/130267

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2025 owned by the authors.

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