Preliminary experimental analysis of a small-scale prototype SWRO desalination plant, designed for continuous adjustment of its energy consumption to the widely varying power generated by a stand-alone wind turbine

Carta, José A.; González, Jaime Gil; Cabrera, Pedro; Subiela, Vicente J.

doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2014.09.093

Cited by 74 publications

(27 citation statements)

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“…A key point from Fornarelli et al () is whether intermittent solar and wind energy output could affect the quality of permeate. They proposed allowing the plant to operate at variable power levels based on findings from several studies (Carta, González, Cabrera, & Subiela, ; García Latorre, Pérez Báez, & Gómez Gotor, ; Ibbotson, ; Richards, Capao, & Schafer, ) that showed that power fluctuations of up to 50% do not have strong influence on the quality and quantity of permeate in the short term. However, more data are needed to ascertain the long‐term effects of energy fluctuations of erratic RE sources on permeate output (Cipollina et al, ).…”

Section: Case Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Solar desalination: Cases, synthesis, and challenges

2020

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Desalination will become an increasingly important water resource to supply a growing world population that will face greater water scarcity in the coming decades. Desalination processes are energy-intensive and currently rely on fossil fuels that contribute to global warming and exacerbate the planet's water woes. Solar power, as a low-carbon energy resource, can reduce desalination's environmental footprint. However, there are many logistical considerations to take into account when planning solar desalination projects. This paper examines six of these issues, which include: (a) the spatial distribution of solar energy and saline water, (b) modeling tools to measure the financial feasibility of solar powered desalination plants, (c) community approval, (d) interconnection policies for solar desalination plants connected to the regional grid, (e) combining solar energy with other renewable energy sources, and (f) potential carbon savings from switching to solar energy. The paper will conduct its analysis through four key case studies in El Paso, Texas, Abilene, Texas, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, and Denmark, Australia. The paper concludes with a discussion on how improved solar technology will further the economic prospects of solar desalination and an analysis of brine disposal options that include siting seawater desalination operations in waters with high circulation and explaining how brine harvesting could lead to useful economic mineral products such as sodium, chlorine, potassium, and magnesium. This article is categorized under: Engineering Water > Sustainable Engineering of Water K E Y W O R D S desalination, solar energy, water-energy nexus

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Section: Case Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Solar desalination: Cases, synthesis, and challenges

2020

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“…Thus, in high wind-potential areas where desalination is also required, wind energy is preferred. The wind energy can be transformed to electricity [5][6][7][8], thermal energy [9], and gravitational potential energy [10], etc. first and then these medium energy forms are used to power the following desalination unit.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A conceptual demonstration and theoretical design of a novel “super-gravity” vacuum flash process for seawater desalination

Chen

et al. 2015

Desalination

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“…The small-scale database contained SEC data of desalination processes reported in peer-reviewed literature published since 2000 [16,[19][20][21][22]27,35,36,41,42,[52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61], including information for the raw water flow rate q rw (m 3 /day), product water flow rate q pw (m 3 /day), recovery R (unitless), year YR, raw water TDS c rw (mg/L), product water TDS c pw (mg/L), operating (feed) pressure P (bar), energy recovery ER (binary variable, unitless), and temperature T ( • C). These desalination factors, summarized in Table 2, represented the explanatory variables in our multiple linear regression model for small-scale desalination facilities, referred to here as the small-scale model.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Table 1. Specific energy consumption, as reported in literature [9,16,17,[19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28], varies for different desalination technologies. Total equivalent specific energy consumption is equal to the sum of kilowatt-hours (electric) and kilowatt-hours (thermal), converted based on an assumed 45% efficiency of a modern power station [16]: equivalent electric kWh/m 3 = kWh e /m 3 + 0.45 kWh th /m 3 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predicting the Specific Energy Consumption of Reverse Osmosis Desalination

Stillwell

Webber

2016

Water

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Desalination is often considered an approach for mitigating water stress. Despite the abundance of saline water worldwide, additional energy consumption and increased costs present barriers to widespread deployment of desalination as a municipal water supply. Specific energy consumption (SEC) is a common measure of the energy use in desalination processes, and depends on many operational and water quality factors. We completed multiple linear regression and relative importance statistical analyses of factors affecting SEC using both small-scale meta-data and municipal-scale empirical data to predict the energy consumption of desalination. Statistically significant results show water quality and initial year of operations to be significant and important factors in estimating SEC, explaining over 80% of the variation in SEC. More recent initial year of operations, lower salinity raw water, and higher salinity product water accurately predict lower values of SEC. Economic analysis revealed a weak statistical relationship between SEC and cost of water production. Analysis of associated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions revealed important considerations of both electricity source and SEC in estimating the GHG-related sustainability of desalination. Results of our statistical analyses can aid decision-makers by predicting the SEC of desalination to a reasonable degree of accuracy with limited data.

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Preliminary experimental analysis of a small-scale prototype SWRO desalination plant, designed for continuous adjustment of its energy consumption to the widely varying power generated by a stand-alone wind turbine

Cited by 74 publications

References 72 publications

Solar desalination: Cases, synthesis, and challenges

Solar desalination: Cases, synthesis, and challenges

A conceptual demonstration and theoretical design of a novel “super-gravity” vacuum flash process for seawater desalination

Predicting the Specific Energy Consumption of Reverse Osmosis Desalination

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