Integration of risk, flexibility, and resilience in the optimization of water–energy nexus

Co-location of power plants and desalination systems allows for a reduction in operational expense through energy integration. Furthermore, augmenting fossil-based power plants with solar energy provides a means of reducing the carbon footprint of electricity generation. It is also critical to protect the combined energy–water system against internal and external risk factors to maintain a reliable supply of both electricity and water. Therefore, a systematic approach for assessing and mitigating risks is needed. Because of the complex water–energy interactions, a superstructure representation is created and a quantitative risk assessment is conducted to show potential risk factors that target specific sub-systems. A surrogate model of the flexibility index analysis is built in order to optimize the superstructure for both cost and flexibility objectives. Finally, the generated design is simulated against disruption scenarios to obtain its resilience against various risk factors. This approach is applied to a case study on the Kuwait water–energy plant to show how the developed approach can help decision-makers create operational strategies to protect against risk in a cost-effective manner.