There is a strong nexus between water and energy. Water is required to produce energy, particularly electricity, and energy is consumed in providing vital urban water and wastewater services to cities and towns across Australia. Most energy in the urban water cycle is used to heat water for residential and commercial applications. Therefore, water demand management can significantly reduce overall urban energy use and carbon footprint.
This project will build upon the outputs of RP3002 and RP3028 by adapting the agent based modelling framework developed in these projects to understand the complex processes and cumulative impact of behavioural rules within a social network, in response to intervention options to promote the uptake of water conservation and efficiency measures.
The project brings together CSIRO’s capabilities in simulating social processes and technological forecasting to accommodate the complex variables associated with consumer behaviour and Sydney Water’s data sets and research associated with water conservation and efficiency to evaluate chosen policy and behavioural change programs, to reduce urban water and wastewater impacts on energy usage, and the associated carbon emissions.