The influence of reverse osmosis desalination in a combination with pump storage on the penetration of wind and PV energy: A case study for Jordan

Abstract

Water resources are a crucial problem for a number of arid countries. One possible solution for this issue is the implementation of desalination but its utilization can greatly increase the demand for electricity. An important concept for a wide scale implementation of desalination is the integration of water and energy resources. Jordan is currently one of the most water deprived countries in the world. It is also a country very rich in renewable energy sources but almost no utilization of that potential. A combination of desalination, pump storage that utilize the produced brine and renewable energy sources could solve both issues. The desalination plants could produce enough water to ensure the supply for Jordan's ever growing population while the use of wind and solar power could provide much needed electricity and reduce the need for imported fossil fuels as well as CO2 emissions. The goal of this paper is to evaluate the impact of desalination in a combination with pump storage that utilizes the produced brine on the penetration of intermittent renewable energy sources in an energy system. The analysis has been conducted on a case study for the country of Jordan using the EnergyPLAN advanced energy system analyses tool.

Integrated Energy Planning with a High Share of Variable Renewable Energy Sources for a Caribbean Island

“…The approach of using water storage instead of energy storage was also adopted in [29], although their storage size was much larger, equating to 30 days of water demand. On the other hand, for the case of flexibly utilising reverse osmosis in Jordan, the storage capacity equated only to 6 h of average demand [30]. For this paper, it was assumed that a smaller capacity of three days of average water demand would provide enough flexibility in the energy system.…”

Multi-objective optimization of a simplified factory model acting as a prosumer on the electricity market

“…Increased integration of renewables can also be achieved with integration of reverse osmosis desalination process into the energy system with the use of pumped storage, as well as desalinated water storage (Novosel et al, 2014. In both studies the use of pumped and desalinated water storage was crucial for increased integration of wind and PV.…”

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

“…The aforementioned sources as well as other useful "state of the art" studies in (Refs [1,10,18,37]) are used to develop a methodology on how to fulfil the objectives of this study. This study constitutes the first approach to develop a techno-economic tool capable of dimensioning and integrating renewable energy sources and desalination units to the grid and carry out an overall analysis and energy balance on an hourly basis throughout the year.…”