Techno-Economics of Cogeneration Approaches for Combined Power and Desalination From Concentrated Solar Power

Journal Article · Tue Jan 08 00:00:00 EST 2019 · Journal of Solar Energy Engineering

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4042061· OSTI ID:1608454

Gunawan, Andrey ^[1]; Simmons, Richard A. ^[1]; Haynes, Megan W. ^[1]; Moreno, Daniel ^[1]; Menon, Akanksha K. ^[1]; Hatzell, Marta C. ^[1]; Yee, Shannon K. ^[1]

---

1. Georgia Inst. of Technology, Atlanta, GA (United States)

For many decades, integration of concentrated solar power (CSP) and desalination relied solely on the use of conventional steam Rankine cycles with thermally based desalination technologies. However, CSP research focus is shifting toward the use of supercritical CO₂ Brayton cycles due to the significant improvement in thermal efficiencies. Here, we present a techno-economic study that compares the generated power and freshwater produced from a CSP system operated with a Rankine and Brayton cycle. Such a study facilitates co-analysis of the costs of producing both electricity and water among the other trade-off assessments. To minimize the levelized cost of water (LCOW), a desalination facility utilizing multi-effect distillation with thermal vapor compression (MED/TVC) instead of multistage flash distillation (MSF) is most suitable. The techno-economic analysis reveals that in areas where water production is crucial to be optimized, although levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) values are lowest for wet-cooled recompression closed Brayton cycle (RCBR) with MSF (12.1 cents/kWh_e) and MED/TVC (12.4 cents/kWh_e), there is only a 0.35 cents/kWh_e increase for dry-cooled RCBR with MED/TVC to a cost of 12.8 cents/kWh_e. In conclusion, this suggests that the best candidate for optimizing water production while minimizing both LCOW and LCOE is dry-cooled RCBR with MED/TVC desalination.

• Research Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Solar Energy Technologies Office
• Grant/Contract Number: EE0007110
• OSTI ID: 1608454
• Journal Information: Journal of Solar Energy Engineering, Vol. 141, Issue 2; ISSN 0199-6231
• Publisher: ASME
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION
42 ENGINEERING
combined heat and power
concentrating solar power
water
thermodynamic power cycles
cogeneration
Rankine cycle
Brayton cycle
thermal desalination
CSP
cost