Techno-Economic Feasibility Study of a Hypersaline Pressure-Retarded Osmosis Power Plants: Dead Sea–Red Sea Conveyor

Abstract

In this study, three pressure retarded osmosis (PRO) power plants are proposed to be built on the Red Sea–Dead Sea (RSDS) water conveyance project, to generate power from the salinity gradient between two water streams at different salt concentrations. The first two proposed plants are to be built after sea water reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination plants, where Red Sea water and the rejected brine from SWRO plants are used as feed and draw solutions, respectively. In the third proposed plant, Red Sea water and Dead Sea water will be used. Results showed that the three proposed plants are technically feasible while the third plant is the only one that is economically feasible with a 134.5 MW capacity and a 0.056 $/KWh levelized cost of electricity (LCE). The power generated from the third PRO power plant accounts for about 24.7% of the power needed for the RSDS project that can be used to power SWRO-2 in order to reduce the electricity consumption by 49.3%. If the generated power from the proposed PRO plant is sold to the Jordanian national electricity grid at the current selling price in accordance with Jordanian prices of electricity, a saving of about 21.2% can be attained. It is found that using the power generated by the current proposed plants for desalination project purposes will significantly reduce the price of desalinated water produced from SWRO desalination plants.

Fluidics for energy harvesting: from nano to milli scales

“…A LCOE between 0.62–0.97 $ per kW h is estimated for feed water of different salinities. Based on the analysis model, suggestions including waste water treatment (as feed water) or PRO installation near waste water source (within 1 km) could effectively reduce the LCOE down to 0.14 $ per kW h. Khasawneh et al 157 analyzed the feasibility of installing PRO power plants with Red Sea-Dead sea waters. It was demonstrated that the project is technically and economically feasible, with a LCOE of 0.056 $ and a power of 134.5 MW.…”

Producing fit‐for‐purpose water and recovering resources from various sources: An overview

“…The salt gradient energy can be exploited by several technologies such as pressure retarded osmosis (PRO) and reverse electrodialysis (RED). A unique application of SWRO‐PRO is demonstrated in a case study which proposes combining three PRO plants with two SWRO plants on the Red Sea–Dead Sea (RSDS) water conveyance project (Khasawneh et al., 2018). Although only the concentrate generated from desalination is considered in this overview, every industry producing concentrates should be looking into recovering available resources from those concentrates.…”