Desalination using renewable energy sources on the arid islands of South Aegean Sea

Abstract

a b s t r a c tWater and energy supply are strongly interrelated and their efficient management is crucial for a sustainable future. Water and energy systems on several Greek islands face a number of pressing issues. Water supply is problematic as regards both to the water quality and quantity. There is significant lack of water on several islands and this is mainly dealt with tanker vessels which transport vast amounts of water from the mainland. At the same time island energy systems are congested and rely predominantly on fossil fuels, despite the abundant renewable energy potential. These issues may be addressed by combining desalination and renewable energy technologies. It is essential to analyse the feasibility of this possibility. This study focuses on developing a tool capable of designing and optimally sizing desalination and renewable energy units. Several parameters regarding an island's water demand and the desalination's energy requirements are taken into account as well as input data which concern technological performance, resource availability and economic data. The tool is applied on three islands in the South Aegean Sea, Patmos (large), Lipsoi (medium) and Thirasia (small). Results of the modelling exercise show that the water selling price ranges from 1.45 V/m 3 for the large island, while the corresponding value is about 2.6 V/m 3 for the small island, figures significantly lower than the current water cost (7 e9 V/m 3 ).

Hybrid renewable energy systems for desalination

“…Information on technical performance, available resources and economic calculations has also been used. Modeling results showed that freshwater prices ranged from 1.45 euros per cubic meter for large islands to 2.6 euros per cubic meter for small islands, which is well below the current price of water in these areas (7-9 euros per cubic meter) (Mentis et al 2016).…”

“…Jordan is the right country for using solar and wind energy sources. The return on investment for some projects using wind energy is 6 years and for PV cells is 2.3 years (Mentis et al 2016). The results show that the optimal use of renewable sources for electricity generation can be increased by up to 76%, leading to a significant reduction in fossil fuel consumption and CO 2 emissions.…”

“…Various studies show that investment, operation and maintenance costs are directly dependent on on-site conditions (Shatat et al 2013;Balfaqih et al 2017;Darwish et al 2016;Pinto and Marques 2017;Younos 2005). The construction cost and production capacity of the various types of desalination methods are shown in Table 6 (Mentis et al 2016).…”

“…In this strategy, it is necessary to allocate energy-saving components to meet the needs of the complex at all times of the year, as access to renewable sources fluctuates throughout the year that complicates the design. Also, by overestimating the capacity of the devices, we will need a wider terrain to locate the equipment that makes this scenario costly (Mentis et al 2016). Microgrid generation units can be considered as a small-scale power grid that includes the production, transmission and storage sectors and can meet local needs.…”

Is Renewable Energy-Powered Desalination a Viable Solution for Water Stressed Regions? A Case Study in Algarve, Portugal

“…Case studies in pairing reverse osmosis plants with RES have been dedicated to locations of varying scales: islands [10][11][12], edge-of-grid rural communities [13], and large coastal cities [14][15][16].…”