Energy is an essential ingredient of socio-economic development and economic growth. Renewable energy provides a variable and environmental friendly option and national energy security at a time when decreasing global reserves of fossil fuels threatens the long-term sustainability of global economy. The integration of renewable resources in desalination and water purification is becoming increasingly attractive. This is justified by the fact that areas of fresh water shortages have plenty of solar energy and these technologies have low operating and maintenance costs. In this paper an attempt has been made to present a review, in brief, work of the highlights that have been achieved during the recent years worldwide and the state-of-the-art for most important efforts in the field of desalination by renewable energies, with emphasis on technologies and economics. The review also includes water sources, demand, availability of potable water and purification methods. The classification of distillation units has been done on the basis of literature survey till today. A comparative study between different renewable energy technologies powered desalination systems as well as economics have been done. The real problem in these technologies is the optimum economic design and evaluation of the combined plants in order to be economically viable for remote or arid regions. Wind energy technology is cheaper than the conventional ones, and used extensively around the world. The slow implementation of renewable energy projects especially in the developing countries are mostly due to the governments subsides of conventional fuels products and electricity. The economic analyses carried out so far have not been able to provide a strong basis for comparing economic viability of each desalination technology. The economic performances expressed in terms of cost of water production have been based on different system capacity, system energy source, system component, and water source. These differences make it difficult, if not impossible, to assess the economic performance of a particular technology and compare it with others. Reverse osmosis is becoming the technology of choice with continued advances being made to reduce the total energy consumption and lower the cost of water produced.

A review of renewable energy technologies integrated with desalination systems

Most of the energy generated globally utilize fossil fuels involving the emission of environmentally hazardous carbon dioxide and depletion of fossil fuel resources. The continuous variation in fuel prices has added a major concern on its sustainable use for future energy requirements. In order to minimize the environmental degradation during energy production process due to emissions of hazardous gases, the utilization of renewable energy resources can make the energy use clean as well as sustainable. Due to an ever increasing demand of clean energy, a sharp rise in the utilization of naturally available solar energy has been observed. Currently, there are several possible routes for solar energy technological developments. In order to effectively utilize the solar power system, one needs to know the technology and its suitability according to the requirements and nature of usage. In this article, different solar power technologies have been reviewed which can be utilized for the global sustainable electric power generation. Major emphasize has been on solar photovoltaic (PV) and concentrated solar power (CSP) technologies. Their types, mechanism, efficiency and cost factors have been discussed. It has been observed that solar PV being more commercially developed and mature technology is suited for both small and large scale applications while CSP technology despite being expensive yield higher economic returns and is suited for large scale applications. Every solar power technology has its own advantage and disadvantage and their preferred usage is basically dependent on the specific case and given conditions. It has also been observed that solar energy, which is a fairly stable and consistently available source of clean energy has the significant potential to cater ever increasing world electricity requirements.

Solar power technologies for sustainable electricity generation – A review

Concentrated solar power plants (CSPs) are gaining momentum due to their potential of power generation throughout the day for base load applications in the desert regions with extremely high direct normal irradiance (DNI). Among various types of the CSPs, solar tower power technologies are becoming the front runners especially in the United States and around the world with the possibility to compete with traditional power generation technologies in terms of efficiency and levelized cost of electricity (LCOE). A bibliometric analysis of the publications on the CSP systems and components since 1990 shows a total of 6400+ publications and reveals an exponential growth due to reasons that CSP systems promises a lot of potential as the future large scale power source for varied applications. This review consolidates the benefits and challenges of the CSP technologies particularly in the desert regions. Thorough literature analysis as well as the meteorological data projects the trend that the CSP systems would become a reality in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Australia, Southwestern region of the United States, Southwestern part of China and China/Mongolia border with high direct normal irradiance. However, enormous amount of support and capital investments are needed for making these CSP systems realistic as there is not much power grid network in existence. It is evident that there are multiple challenges specifically in water consumption, materials design and development for the optimum heat transfer fluid, thermal energy storage and receiver subsystems in addition to commercial viability and environmental impacts. Each of the challenges is discussed in detail and suggestions are made to address the challenges.

Prospects and problems of concentrating solar power technologies for power generation in the desert regions

Electricity is perhaps the most versatile energy carrier in modern economies, and it is therefore fundamentally linked to human and economic development. Electricity growth has outpaced that of any other fuel, leading to ever-increasing shares in the overall mix. This trend is expected to continue throughout the following decades, as large—especially rural—segments of the world population in developing countries start to climb the “energy ladder” and become connected to power grids. Electricity therefore deserves particular attention with regard to its contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions, which is reflected in the ongoing development of low-carbon technologies for power generation. The focus of this updated review of electricity-generating technologies is twofold: (a) to provide more technical information than is usually found in global assessments on critical technical aspects, such as variability of wind power, and (b) to capture the most recent findings from the international literature. This report covers eight technologies. Seven of these are generating technologies: hydro-, nuclear, wind, photovoltaic, concentrating solar, geothermal and biomass power. The remaining technology is carbon capture and storage. This selection is fairly representative for technologies that are important in terms of their potential capacity to contribute to a low-carbon world economy.

Current State of Development of Electricity-Generating Technologies: A Literature Review

In this work, an overview of the interconnections between membrane technology and renewable energy sources (biomass, salinity gradient power, wind, solar) is given. Regarding biomass, membrane processes such as membrane reactors and bio-reactors, membrane contactors, membrane distillation in the logic of process intensification strategy may be opportunely integrated in the production processes of green fuels. Their advantages such as reduction of the separation load and stage number, improved yields and selectivities compared to conventional processes imply low direct energy consumption, lower footprint area occupied by the processes plants. Moreover, the possibility of integration these advanced membrane processes with other traditional membrane operations such as microfiltration (MF), ultrafiltration (UF), nanofiltration (NF), reverse osmosis (RO), pervaporation (PV) allows the reduction of indirect energy consumption through the recycling and reuse of raw materials and secondary materials minimizing the formation of wastes. Both Pressure Retarded Osmosis (PRO) and Reversed Electro Dialysis (RED), the only two technologies for which salinity gradient power-based demonstration projects are running, use membranes. In this article, key points and challenges to be faced for both PRO and RED are reported. On the other side, membrane desalination plants, are more often considered excellent locations to install wind and solar power generators. Most advanced research in the field is focused on solar assisted membrane distillation (MD). In the logic of fully "sustainable desalination", highly innovative technologies such as Microbial desalination cells (MDCs) could be integrated as pre-treatment stage in membrane desalination plants in remote, arid regions.

Membrane processes and renewable energies

The paper gives a review of concentrating solar power technologies and shows their perspectives for sustainable development and climate protection. New concepts for the combined generation of power and water are presented together with instruments for enhanced project assessment using remote sensing technologies and geographic information systems. The vast solar energy resources of the South can be activated by international renewable energy alliances and allow for a smooth transition of the present electricity schemes to a sustainable power system based on renewable energy sources.

Combined Solar Power and Desalination Plants for the Mediterranean Region

https://gc.tnrc.de/wiki/images/e/e0/2002-09-25_4899.pdf

Combined solar power and desalination plants for the Mediterranean region — sustainable energy supply using large-scale solar thermal power plants

Etude technico-economique de la production d'electricite et d'eau potable, a l'aide de centrales heliothermiques. Analyse des perspectives de developpement de l'utilisation des energies renouvelables pour la production d'electricite en Europe, et pour la production d'electricite et d'eau potable dans les pays du Maghreb.

Strom und Trinkwasser aus solaren Dampfkraftwerken

Etude des perspectives, a moyen terme, d'implantation des centrales heliothermiques, notamment en Europe et en Afrique du Nord. Analyse des obstacles. Presentation des grands axes d'une strategie commerciale et du programme SYNTHESIS, de reduction des couts. Etude du financement des relisations et de la gestion des risques dans ce domaine

G. Knies

Papers

Combined Solar Power and Desalination Plants for the Mediterranean Region

Combined solar power and desalination plants for the Mediterranean region — sustainable energy supply using large-scale solar thermal power plants

Strom und Trinkwasser aus solaren Dampfkraftwerken

Markteinführung solarthermischer Kraftwerke : Chance für die Arbeitsmarkt- und Klimapolitik

Concentrating on Solar Power in a Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Co-Operation