Clean Water from Clean Energy: Decentralised Drinking Water Production Using Wind Energy Powered Electrodialysis

Abstract

Supply of potable water requires energy and unfortunately most of the countries with minimal access to safe drinking water are also poor in terms of access to reliable energy grids. However, many of such regions have access to other sources of water (such as brackish and groundwater) that can be treated for producing drinking water if correct treatment systems are put in place. Moreover, many of the electrically remote areas are rich in terms of renewable energy (RE) resources (such as wind and solar) which can be potentially employed as the main source of energy for powering water purification systems. Therefore, development and implementation of off-grid RE powered contaminant removal systems, for producing freshwater from available resources (such as brackish and groundwater), can be considered as an effective and potentially sustainable solution for overcoming the drinking water scarcity issue in remote regions of developing countries. This chapter revises the state of the art related to desalination systems using electrodialysis technology powered by wind energy for decentralised water production.

Voltage- and flow-controlled electrodialysis batch operation: Flexible and optimized brackish water desalination

“…Cirez et al [22] developed a flexible PV-ED system using an optimized PV module design, which was composed of multiple connected PV cells in series/parallel that could vary voltage applied to the ED stack and maximize energy transfer given available solar irradiance. Malek et al [23] demonstrated robust and stable desalination performance in a lab-scale, directly-coupled, wind-powered ED system under various wind speeds, turbulence intensities, and periods of oscillation. The study indicated that specific energy consumption of the process was relatively unaffected by fluctuations tested in the lab-scale wind-ED system [21].…”

PV‐betriebene Umkehrosmoseanlage zur Meerwasserentsalzung – Modellierung und Analyse verschiedener Energieversorgungsvarianten

“…Im Unterschied dazu bietet die Nutzung erneuerbarer Energiequellen die Möglichkeit einer nachhaltigen und emissionsarmen Wasserentsalzung [10][11][12]. Durch den Einsatz derartiger dezentraler Wasserentsalzungsanlagen auf Basis erneuerbarer Energien können zusätzlich neben dem Vorteil der Netzunabhängigkeit Kosten für den Wassertransport entfallen [13,14].…”