Enas R Shouman, Sorour MH and Abulnour AG
Freshwater shortage in many areas around the world presents a constraint to sustainable development. Desalination of saline water, especially seawater which accounts for more than 97% of the total water quantity on earth, represents a feasible option in many cases. The need for sustainable sources of energy to operate high energy - consumption desalination systems is mandatory. Future, in remote coastal and arid areas, the use of renewable energy for powering desalination plants could be a feasible option in view of several technical, economic and environmental considerations. In this paper, the issue of integration of desalination technologies and renewable energy from specified sources is addressed. The features of Photovoltaic (PV) system combined with reverse osmosis desalination technology, which represents the most commonly applied integration between renewable energy and desalination technology, are analyzed. Further, a case study for conceptual seawater reverse osmosis (SW-RO) desalination plant with 1000 m3/d capacity is presented, based on PV and conventional generators powered with fossil fuel to be installed in a remote coastal area in Egypt, as a typical developing country. The estimated water cost for desalination with PV/ SW-RO system is about $1.21 m3, while ranging between $1.18-1.56 for SW-RO powered with conventional generator powered with fossil fuel. Analysis of the economical, technical and environmental factors depicts the merits of using large scale integrated PV/RO system as an economically feasible water supply with an autonomous power supply.
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