Atmospheric Water Generation and Energy Consumption: An Empirical Analysis

Access to clean water is a growing challenge globally, especially in areas where natural fresh water is not available and communities rely on processes like desalination for clean water. Methods for producing fresh water must be equal to or more cost effective than clean drinking water from other sources at the point of use. Atmospheric water generation is one option for producing clean drinking water. This paper examines the cost of water generated through this method and compares it to the cost of bottled water. Compared to both 12 oz. bottles of cold water from a vending machine and gallon size containers of water from a store, AWG is cost effective and takes only 72 days to break compared to 12 oz. bottles and 1,259 days to break even with gallon containers.