ECOpole 2025: Smart Integration of Energy and Water Systems for Sustainable Urban Infrastructure
Kourosh BEHZADIAN
University of West London, School of Computing and Engineering, London, UK
Abstract: Urban infrastructure is being reshaped by concurrent pressures such as rapid urbanisation, uneven access to safe water, climate-driven variability, the energy crisis, and ageing assets, while energy and water utilities pursue accelerated decarbonisation (e.g., the UK utility sector’s ambition to reach net zero well before 2050). These forces make siloed planning untenable and call for sector coupling: co-optimising energy and water as an intelligent, integrated cyber-physical system can deliver greater resilience, equity, and emissions reductions at lowest cost. This presentation reviews the framework and the requirements needed to achieve it.
Keywords: energy systems, water systems, urban infrastructure, smart integration
Selected Publications:
Landa-Cansigno, O., Behzadian, K., Davila-Cano, D.I., Campos, L.C. (2020). Performance assessment of water reuse strategies using integrated framework of urban water metabolism and water-energy-pollution nexus. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 27(5), 4582-4597.
Veldhuis, A.J., Glover, J., Bradley, D., Behzadian, K., López-Avilés, A., Cottee, J., et al. (2019). Re-distributed manufacturing and the food-water-energy nexus: opportunities and challenges. Production Planning & Control, 30(7), 593-609.
Behzadian, K., Kapelan, Z., Morley, M. (2014). Resilience-based performance assessment of water-recycling schemes in urban water systems. Water Distribution System Analysis, WDSA2014.
Behzadian, K., Kapelan, Z. (2015). Advantages of integrated and sustainability based assessment for metabolism based strategic planning of urban water systems. Science of the Total Environment, 527, 220-231.
Cottee, J., López-Avilés, A., Behzadian, K., Bradley, D., Butler, D., Downing, C., et al. (2016). The local nexus network: Exploring the future of localised food systems and associated energy and water supply. Sustainable Design and Manufacturing 2016, 613-624.
