Economic evaluation of reverse osmosis desalination system coupled with tidal energy

Abstract

A reverse osmosis (RO) desalination system coupled with tidal energy is proposed. The mechanical energy produced by the tidal energy through hydraulic turbine is directly used to drive the RO unit. The system performances and the water cost of the conventional and tidal energy RO systems are compared. It is found that the proposed tidal energy RO system can save water cost in the range of 31.0%-41.7% in comparison with the conventional RO system. There is an optimum feed pressure that leads to the lowest water cost. The tidal RO system can save more costs at a high feed pressure or a high water recovery rate. The optimum feed pressure of the tidal energy RO system is higher than that of the conventional RO system. The longer lifetime of the tidal energy RO system can save even more water cost. When the site development cost rate is lower than 40%, the water cost of the tidal energy RO system will be lower than that of the conventional RO system. The proposed technology will be an effective alternative desalination method in the future.

Keywords

reverse osmosis (RO) desalination / tidal energy / model / economic evaluation

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Key Laboratory of Ocean Renewable Energy and Sea Water Desalination of Science and Technology Special Project of Zhanjiang City of China (2013 A06008), the Science and Technology Project of Guangdong Province of China (2011B010100033), and the Science and Technology Development Project in Ocean and Fishery of Guangdong Province of China (A201301D01).

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