Maryam Marzooq^1,2, Maha Alsabbagh^2*, Waleed Al-Zubari²

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¹ Electricity and Water Authority, Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain.
² Department of Natural Resources and Environment, Arabian Gulf University, Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain.
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Abstract: Water-energy nexus is an emerging issue that receives considerable attention in the world in general and in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries in particular. The GCC countries depend mainly on energy generated from fossil fuels to produce drinking water. Yet, the amount of water-related energy use in Bahrain remains unexplored. This study aims to quantify the amount of energy used in the water supply cycle for the first time in Bahrain using quantitative methods. A bottom-up approach for data collection was adopted where data for the three main stages of the water supply in Bahrain: water production, water transmission, and water distribution were collected. Results show that the water production stage consumes about 97% of the total energy consumption in the water supply sector, followed by water transmission (2.9%) and water distribution (0.1%). Comparisons conducted with best practices in the world show that water desalination plants in Bahrain consume relatively high amounts of energy to produce water based on the desalination technology used. This study calls for focusing on the production stage in achieving energy efficiency since it is the largest consumer and where losses are occurring based on the benchmarking. This study also recommends investigating the share of electricity and thermal energy consumed in the water supply cycle in Bahrain in addition to the wastewater treatment sector. This is imperative to provide a holistic overview of the water-related energy use in Bahrain.

Keywords: Water-Energy Nexus, Specific Electric Energy Use, Water Distribution, Water Production, Water Transmission

Cite this paper: Marzooq, M. , Alsabbagh, M. and Al-Zubari, W. (2018) Energy Consumption in the Municipal Water Supply Sector in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Computational Water, Energy, and Environmental Engineering, 7, 95-110. doi: 10.4236/cweee.2018.73006.

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