“NEXAS: Energy – Water SOULutions” builds on a diverse heritage and experience base that allows us to pursue meaningful solutions to complex systems challenges that most impact our future.
Sustainable Energy - Water Systems
Our work relies on our “systems capabilities” in the water and energy domain that integrates education, project management, project execution and technology innovation to improve project efficiency and deliver on key outcomes. Tailored courses, workshops and presentations emphasizing key components of the “nexus” are integral to our systems efforts.
Distributed Energy Systems
As the global community strives to accelerate the transition to a low carbon energy future, the importance of distributed energy systems become paramount. Our work has emphasized the need to integrate and manage building sector demand with generation provided by renewable resources, storage provided by various technologies (e.g., pumped hydro, batteries), data analytics and assessment of ancillary services.
Island States: Energy-Water Nexus
Island States provide an extraordinary test bed for assessing the role of the energy – water nexus and technology innovation in transforming future energy systems and significantly reducing carbon emissions. Our emphasis is on fully integrating the “nexus” to optimize clean energy production while assuring safe water availability and to assess the inherent challenges associated with large-scale grid penetration of low carbon energy resources in a resilient and reliable manner.
Subsurface Flow and Transport
Understanding and predicting subsurface hydrologic conditions have a significant impact on our ability to optimize the impacts of ground and surface water production and to predict the distribution of potential contaminants in the subsurface. Our efforts have emphasized understanding the interactions between engineered systems and the natural environment for several different potential contaminants.
Gorona del Viento - El Hierro, Canary Islands
The energy – water nexus touches nearly every element comprising the breadth of the energy sector and will continue to have a profound impact on the availability of safe water for generations to come. Gerona del Viento is one example of how the “nexus” will impact our low carbon energy future and illustrates the critical role Island States will play in the global energy transformation.
Gorona del Viento is widely recognized as the best operating example of the energy – water nexus that directly impacts power generation in the world. The electric grid on El Hierro is 100% renewable and is powered using wind generation that is supplemented during peak demand hours and during times of low wind velocity by hydropower. Water is pumped from a lower reservoir (smaller pipe in photo) to an upper reservoir during times of high wind power production to provide a large storage reservoir. Water is released from the upper reservoir in the larger pipeline and activates turbines in the “pump house” connected to generators that produce electricity on demand.
