Modeling and Co-Optimization of a Micro Water-Energy Nexus for Smart Communities

This paper introduces a micro-nexus of water and energy which can be considered as one of the fundamental infrastructures of future communities, such as smart buildings, cities, and villages. For the electricity side, an alternating current (AC) power flow model integrated with battery energy storage and renewable generation is adopted. The nonlinear hydraulic characteristics of pipe networks is also considered in the proposed micro water-energy nexus (WEN) model. Integer variables are involved to represent the on/off state of pumps. Base on the proposed nexus model, a co-optimization framework of water and energy networks is developed. We tested the overall co-optimization model, which is a mixed-integer nonlinear programming problem, on a water-energy nexus that consists of the IEEE 13-bus distribution system and an 8-node water distribution network. The simulation results demonstrate that the cost-efficiency of the co-optimization framework is higher than optimizing two systems independently.