Optimum Design of PV-RO System Solar Powered Sea Water Desalination Without Storage in Saudi Arabia (Case Study)
Abstract
Drinking water scarcity is a major problem in regions with law fresh water resources and frequent draughts, such as Saudi Arabia. Water desalination is an excellent solution to this problem; however, it is energy consuming and mainly depends on fossil fuels. Photovoltaics (PV) powered desalination represent a cleaner and cost-effective alternative, because the cost of PV has considerably dropped in the last five years as a result of the efforts to reduce climate change, phase out fossil fuels, and develop renewable energy sources. The objectives of this study were to investigate the feasibility of providing part of the energy required for reverse osmosis (RO) desalination plants with electricity from PVs without storage, determine the price of kWh, and calculate the maximum energy percentage that can be obtained from PV plants during daytime. Therefore, two RO plants located on the Red Sea and Gulf area, in Saudi Arabia were selected as case studies. The energy consumption data were based on a one-year operational data from the studied RO plants. The maximum and minimum mean energy demands among the plants were found to be 47.31 MWh/h and 2.28 MWh/h, respectively. Solar data was attained from the Renewable Resource Monitoring and Mapping (RRMM) program, and a solar PV plant was designed to calculate the energy production, percentage of electricity consumption that could be covered by PV, and price of kWh in each case. The results showed that the electric energy produced from the solar power plants ranged from 16,125.66 kWh to 386,459.92 kWh. In addition, by assuming the consumption of the total energy output, solar energy could cover up to 19.9% of the total energy demand.