New prospects for PV powered water desalination plants: case studies in Saudi Arabia: New prospects for PV powered water desalination plants

Journal Article · Wed Jan 28 00:00:00 EST 2015 · Progress in Photovoltaics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/pip.2572· OSTI ID:1425175

Fthenakis, Vasilis ^[1]; Atia, Adam A. ^[2]; Morin, Olivier ^[2]; Bkayrat, Raed ^[3]; Sinha, Parikhit ^[3]

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1. Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United States). Center for Life Cycle Analysis; Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States). Renewable Energy Group
2. Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United States). Center for Life Cycle Analysis
3. First Solar International Middle East, Dubai (United Arab Emirates)

Increased water demand and increased drought episodes in the Middle East and other regions necessitate an expansion in desalination projects and create a great market opportunity for photovoltaics (PV). PV-powered desalination has previously been regarded as not being a cost-competitive solution when compared with conventionally powered desalination; however, the decline in PV costs over the last few years has changed this outlook. Here, this article presents up-to-date performance and cost analysis of reverse osmosis (RO) desalination powered with PV connected to the Saudi Arabian grid. Reference cases include relatively small (i.e., producing 6550 m³ water per day) and large (i.e., 190 000 m³/day) desalination plants using seawater at a salinity of 40 000 ppm. We used data from a King Abdullah University for Science and Technology presentation and Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewables 2.81 Energy Modeling Software (HOMER Energy LLC) in tandem with Desalination Economic Evaluation Program 4.0 (International Atomic Energy Agency) desalination software to analyze the techno-economic feasibility of these plants. The first phase of our work entailed a comparison between dual-axis high concentration PV (CPV) equipped with triple junction III/V solar cells and CdTe PV-powered RO systems. The estimated levelized cost of electricity from CPV is 0.16/kWh dollars, whereas that from CdTe PV is $0.10/kWh dollars and 0.09/kWh dollars for fixed-tilt and one-axis tracking systems, respectively. These costs are higher than the price of diesel-based grid electricity in the region because diesel fuel is heavily subsidized in Saudi Arabia.

• Research Organization: Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Office of Technology Development (EE-20)
• Grant/Contract Number: SC0012704
• OSTI ID: 1425175
• Report Number(s): BNL-112706-2016-JAAM
• Journal Information: Progress in Photovoltaics, Vol. 24, Issue 4; ISSN 1062-7995
• Publisher: Wiley
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

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