Preliminary Field Test Results From a Photovoltaic Electrodialysis Brackish Water Desalination System in Rural India

Abstract

Brackish water desalination is crucial to meet basic drinking water needs in rural India. Solar photovoltaic powered electrodialysis (PV-ED) has been justified as a more cost-effective solution than the current dominant reverse osmosis approach for off-grid systems. This paper presents preliminary results from an ongoing field pilot of a village-scale PV-ED system in Chelluru, which is a small village in South India. System performance is compared to predictions of a PV-ED parametric model of local solar irradiance, ED system parameters, power systems parameters, water storage, and cost, validating the model over a single-batch ED operation. An ∼88% “solar-to-treated water” conversion efficiency was achieved in a typical ED batch operation, using 2.47±0.27 kWh/m3 for brackish desalination in the village. This paper also discusses the difficulties and local constraints encountered during the initial field testing and analyzes system performance in the context of local constraints and availability.

Design and optimization of electrodialysis process parameters for brackish water treatment

“…The membrane technology has played an important role in desalination due to their effectiveness, low energy consumption and cost than thermal desalination [3]. The most common membrane technology in brackish water desalination is reverse osmosis (RO), with 60 -90% of the market share depending on location [4], [5]. Electrodialysis (ED) is gaining attention of researchers, despite the fact that electrodialysis has possessed only 4% of total installed desalination capacity far behind the RO technology which has possessed 64% [3], [6], due to the high recovery of water, less sensitivity to the change in feed water quality and lower specific energy consumption of electrodialysis (ED) process for brackish groundwater desalination compare to the pressure intensive RO process.…”

Economic analysis of an off-grid solar PV for small scale desalination unit

“…The authors adhere to publication requirements that the submitted work is original and has not been published elsewhere. The results obtained in this study favour the usage of reverse osmosis (RO) technology coupled with solar Photovoltaic (PV) units as an economically feasible alternative for brackish water desalinationObtained economic data showed that RO-PV system is an economical feasible desalination alternative [18] 2018 South India To present preliminary results from an ongoing field pilot of a village-scale PV-ED system in Chelluru, which is a small village in South India.…”

“…The system was designed to produce potable water cost-effectively using off-shelf components and has been operating since early 2017 with some downtime. In India, the rapid drop-off in the cost of renewable energy generation and the increased awareness of environmental sustainability have led many to explore photovoltaic-RO (PV-RO) desalination in many countries which have freshwater shortages [18]. RO systems that are powered by PV panels provide a number of benefits, including low operational costs, ease of operation, environmental friendliness, high reliability, simplicity of installation and maintenance, and suitability for use with brackish water [19].…”