IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/appene/v381y2025ics0306261924025121.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Demand response within the Irish wastewater treatment sector: Analysing flexibility potentials of the aeration process and wastewater pumping within an integrated energy–water system model

Author

Listed:
  • Kirchem, Dana
  • Dereli, Recep Kaan
  • Lynch, Muireann Á.
  • Casey, Eoin

Abstract

Significant amounts of electricity consumed in air and water pumping make wastewater treatment energy-intensive. This study investigates the potential power system benefits of load shifting within these pumping processes. As a case study, the Irish power system and wastewater sector are studied by using an integrated modelling approach. The results show that demand flexibility within the wastewater treatment sector can have positive effects on power system costs, electricity consumer costs and the emission intensity of electricity supply. Load smoothing happens particularly during hours with low net electricity demand. The results indicate that the process constraints of the wastewater treatment process impede the flexibility potential. This highlights the importance of modelling the technical characteristics of wastewater treatment plants (WWTP), rather than using a black-box approach which assumes a certain share of the demand as shiftable, as has been the case in the literature to date. WWTP can be a beneficial DR resource for the power system, but neglecting process constraints might yield an over-evaluation of their potential.

Suggested Citation

  • Kirchem, Dana & Dereli, Recep Kaan & Lynch, Muireann Á. & Casey, Eoin, 2025. "Demand response within the Irish wastewater treatment sector: Analysing flexibility potentials of the aeration process and wastewater pumping within an integrated energy–water system model," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 381(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:381:y:2025:i:c:s0306261924025121
    DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2024.125128
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261924025121
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.apenergy.2024.125128?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:381:y:2025:i:c:s0306261924025121. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.