Energy-water Scheduling Decisions for Agricultural Scenario Planning

Food, energy and water resources are heavily interconnected in many process systems and therefore need to be taken into consideration holistically for sustainable decision-making, via a systematic food-energy-water nexus (FEWN) framework. A FEWN study represents a promising decision-making support for regions characterized by scarce water resources, abundant renewable energy resources and significant population growth, as it tackles these different challenges simultaneously while taking into account the effect of each solution strategy on the resource systems at different scales. In this work, we investigate the impact of a FEWN strategy on small-scale farming within agricultural activities. Varying water demands are evaluated on the basis of renewable, and non-renewable based energy sources, along with varying water sources. To this end, a greenhouse connected to a reverse osmosis desalination plant is modeled as a mixed-integer nonlinear optimization problem and optimized for an array of objectives to enable a cost-comparison on the basis of water scarcity. The decision-making tool is then extended towards energy-water scheduling decisions for the optimization of agricultural scenario planning.