Renewable Energy Desalination for Island Communities: Status and Future Prospects in Greece

Abstract

Energy and water are two of the most important components required to ensure prosperity and sustainable development to societies. This paper aims to review the status of renewable energy desalination for Greek islandic communities, deployed in two axes. The first one reviews the desalination systems state of the art technological solutions, their energy needs, how renewable energy may be employed and finally the cost of renewable energy desalination is investigated. The second axis focuses on Greek islands per se, where the current situation is investigated, potential solutions for meeting the water needs are evaluated, all leading to the proposal of a methodology towards designing an appropriate and applicable approach in addressing the water needs. Finally, a discussion takes place on how such options might be further deployed, particularly regarding the impacts they may produce for the livelihood and the future prosperity of the pertinent communities, and at the same time supporting the energy transition towards the EU Green Deal goals.

A Review of Renewable Energy Communities: Concepts, Scope, Progress, Challenges, and Recommendations

“…These communities often combine RE generation with ESS and smart grid technologies to establish resilient and self-sufficient energy systems. Energy planning for islands is complicated by their restricted resource availability, which hinders efforts to establish self-sufficiency and sustainability in their energy systems [98]. Researchers focus on the primary emphasis of this article, which lies in addressing the difficulties associated with deploying RESs within the context of a small island scenario [99,100].…”