Water conservation potential of energy-intensive industries under clean energy and electricity substitution: A case study of nine provinces along the Yellow River Basin

Energy-intensive industries in China are generally water-intensive. In the context of clean energy and electricity substitution driven by the carbon peaking goal, few studies have examined changes in industrial water resources in this development. To address this knowledge gap, a new framework is proposed for quantitatively analyzing industrial water conservation pathways. This study focuses on the nine provinces in the Yellow River Basin (YRB). It employs a bottom-up approach to estimate the overall water consumption of the power and steel industries, which are two key components of both energy-intensive and water-intensive sectors. Subsequently, decomposition analysis was used to identify the key factors affecting inter-annual water consumption changes. Based on the above information, indicators are established to quantify the potential for water conservation, and scenario analysis is utilized to measure and evaluate the water conservation potential of the study area. The results show that the total water consumption for power generation in nine provinces is projected to reach 5.13 billion m3 by 2030, with an average water consumption factor of 0.97 m3/MWh. Simultaneously, the total water consumption for steelmaking is expected to be 820 million m3, with an average water consumption factor of 2.89 m3/t. The increase in water consumption can be decoupled into scale, structure, and intensity effects, which have positive, negative, and negative impacts, respectively. By 2030, the nine provinces have the potential to conserve up to 4.57 billion m3 of water through clean energy and electricity substitution, traditional technology improvement, and inter-regional transmission. These results will contribute to the future coordinated management of energy and water resources.