Lifetime optimisation of integrated thermally and electrically driven solar desalination plants

IF 10.4 1区工程技术 Q1 ENGINEERING, CHEMICAL

npj Clean Water Pub Date : 2024-07-16 DOI:10.1038/s41545-024-00335-4

Benedict Winchester, Gan Huang, Hamish Beath, Philip Sandwell, Jiajun Cen, Jenny Nelson, Christos N. Markides

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Abstract

We compare the performance of photovoltaic (PV), flat-plate and evacuated-tube solar-thermal (ST), and hybrid photovoltaic-thermal (PV-T) collectors to meet the energy demands of multi-effect distillation (MED) desalination plants across four locations. We consider three scales: 1700 m3day−1, 120 m3day−1 and 3 m3day−1. We find a strong dependence of the capacity and configuration of the solar collectors on both the cost of sourcing electricity from the grid and the specific collector employed. We find specific costs as low as 7.8, 3.4 and 3.7 USDm−3 for the three plant capacities. We find that solar-driven systems optimised for the lowest specific cost result in CO2eq emissions equal to, or higher than, those from grid-driven reverse osmosis (RO) and in line with PV-RO. This highlights the need to consider the environmental footprint of these systems to ensure that desalination is in line with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 6.

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热电一体化太阳能海水淡化设备的寿命优化

我们比较了光伏（PV）、平板和真空管太阳-热（ST）以及光伏-热混合（PV-T）集热器的性能，以满足四个地点的多效蒸馏（MED）海水淡化厂的能源需求。我们考虑了三种规模：1700 立方米/天-1、120 立方米/天-1 和 3 立方米/天-1。我们发现，太阳能集热器的容量和配置与从电网获取电力的成本和所采用的特定集热器有很大关系。我们发现三种发电厂的具体成本分别低至 7.8、3.4 和 3.7 美元/立方米。我们发现，以最低特定成本优化的太阳能驱动系统的二氧化碳排放量等于或高于电网驱动的反渗透（RO）系统，与光伏反渗透系统一致。这突出表明，有必要考虑这些系统的环境足迹，以确保海水淡化符合联合国可持续发展目标 6。

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来源期刊

npj Clean Water Environmental Science-Water Science and Technology

CiteScore

15.30

自引率

2.60%

发文量

审稿时长

5 weeks

期刊介绍： npj Clean Water publishes high-quality papers that report cutting-edge science, technology, applications, policies, and societal issues contributing to a more sustainable supply of clean water. The journal's publications may also support and accelerate the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 6, which focuses on clean water and sanitation.