Estimating the cost of desalination plants using a cost database

Wittholz, Michelle; O’Neill, Brian K.; Colby, C.; Lewis, David M.

doi:10.1016/j.desal.2007.07.023

Cited by 165 publications

(103 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…The m used in the capacity factor equation is the slope of the log curve that has been drawn to reflect the change in the cost of a plant as it is made larger or smaller [34]. The value varies depending on the type of plant as shown in Table 1.…”

Section: Capital Cost (Capex) Of a Plantmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Economic analysis of desalination technologies in the context of carbon pricing, and opportunities for membrane distillation

et al. 2013

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The economics membrane distillation (MD) and common seawater desalination methods including multi effect distillation (MED), multistage flash (MSF) and reverse osmosis (RO) are compared. MD also has the opportunity to enhance RO recovery, demonstrated experimentally on RO concentrate from groundwater. MD concentrated RO brine to 361,000 mg/L total dissolved solids, an order of magnitude more saline than typical seawater, validating this potential. On a reference 30,000 m 3 /day plant, MD has similar economics with other thermal desalination techniques, but RO is more cost effective. With the inclusion of a carbon tax of $23 per tonne carbon in Australia, RO remained the economically favourable process. However, when heat comes at a cost equivalent of 10% of the value of the steam needed for MD and MED, under a carbon tax regime, the cost of MD reduces to $0.66/m 3 which is cheaper than RO and MED. The favour to MD was due to lower material cost. On low thermally, high electrically efficient installations MD can desalinate water from low temperature (<50°C) heat sources at a cost of $0.57/m 3 . Our assessment has found that generally, MD opportunities occur when heat is available at low cost, while extended recovery of RO brine is also viable.

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Section: Capital Cost (Capex) Of a Plantmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The cost of new plant is derived from the cost of a similar plant of known capacity, with similar production route, but not necessarily the same end product (the product should be relatively similar, however). It relies on the nonlinear relationship between capacity and cost as shown in Equation 1 [34,39]:…”

Section: Capital Cost (Capex) Of a Plantmentioning

confidence: 99%

Economic analysis of desalination technologies in the context of carbon pricing, and opportunities for membrane distillation

et al. 2013

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“…For seawater RO the energy costs can vary from a third to more than half the cost of desalinating water [343]. Even though Wittholtz et al [344] states that plant location may have little observable effect on the cost of the water, and that cost data from around the world may be applicable to any location [344], it is necessary to make cost adjustments based on site regulations, materials, construction, labor, and power. Currently the major obstacle to developing seawater desalination projects in China is the total cost of those facilities.…”

Section: = 365 +mentioning

confidence: 99%

Advances in Membrane Distillation for Water Desalination and Purification Applications

Camacho

Dumée

Zhang

et al. 2013

Water

627

342

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Membrane distillation is a process that utilizes differences in vapor pressure to permeate water through a macro-porous membrane and reject other non-volatile constituents present in the influent water. This review considers the fundamental heat and mass transfer processes in membrane distillation, recent advances in membrane technology, module configurations, and the applications and economics of membrane distillation, and identifies areas that may lead to technological improvements in membrane distillation as well as the application characteristics required for commercial deployment. Keywordsa function of temperature, vapor pressure, and of the gas molecular mass K 0 membrane characteristic defined by Equation (9) Kn Knudsen number K(T) a function of temperature and molecular weight of the gas l mean free path of the molecules l m distance between parallel spacer fibres (m) LEP Limit Entry Pressure (kPa) M molecular mass (g/mol) M w molecular weights of water (g/mol) M a molecular weights of air (g/mol) n number of CNTs per unit cross section in bucky-paper P pressure in the air gap (kPa) half time to reach the maximum intensity-laser flash technique (s) t proportion of conductive heat (balance due to evaporative heat) loss through the membrane T mean temperature in the pores (K)

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“…A desalination plant has been built to increase metropolitan Adelaide's potable water supply (Wittholz et al 2008). New reticulated pipe systems that supply recycled wastewater have been installed for some new urban development sites (Marks 2006).…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Space matters: the importance of amenity in planning metropolitan growth

Mahmoudi¹,

MacDonald²,

Crossman³

et al. 2012

Aus J Agri & Res Econ

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Most Australian capital cities require many 100,000s of additional dwellings to accommodate demographic change and population pressures in the next two or three decades. Urban growth will come in the form of infill, consolidation and urban expansion. Plans to redevelop environmental amenities such as parks and open green spaces are regularly being put forward to local councils and State governments. Maintaining parks and reserves represents one of the largest costs to local councils. To aid in the evaluation of some of the different propositions, we report the results of a spatial hedonic pricing model with fixed effects for Adelaide, South Australia. The results indicate that the private benefits of a close proximity to golf courses, green space sporting facilities, or the coast, are in the order $0.54, $1.58, and $4.99 per metre closer (when evaluated at the median respectively). The historic Adelaide Parklands add $1.55 to a property's value for each additional metre closer. We demonstrate how the estimated model could be used to calculate how local private benefits capitalized in property values change with changes in the configuration of a park.

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Estimating the cost of desalination plants using a cost database

Cited by 165 publications

References 12 publications

Economic analysis of desalination technologies in the context of carbon pricing, and opportunities for membrane distillation

Economic analysis of desalination technologies in the context of carbon pricing, and opportunities for membrane distillation

Advances in Membrane Distillation for Water Desalination and Purification Applications

Space matters: the importance of amenity in planning metropolitan growth

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