In this section
@article{Winchester:2024:10.1038/s41545-024-00335-4,
author = {Winchester, B and Huang, G and Beath, H and Sandwell, P and Cen, J and Nelson, J and Markides, C},
doi = {10.1038/s41545-024-00335-4},
journal = {npj Clean Water},
title = {Lifetime optimisation of integrated thermally and electrically driven solar desalination plants},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41545-024-00335-4},
volume = {7},
year = {2024}
}
TY - JOUR
AB - We compare the performance of photovoltaic (PV), flat-plate and evacuated-tube solar-thermal (ST), and hybrid photovoltaic-thermal (PV-T) collectors to meet the energy demands of multi-effect distillation (MED) desalination plants across four locations. We consider three scales: 1700 m3day-1, 120 m3day-1 and 3 m3day-1. We find a strongdependence of the capacity and configuration of the solar collectors on both the cost of sourcing electricity from the grid and the specific collector employed. We find specific costs as low as 7.8, 3.4 and 3.7 USDm-3 for the three plant capacities. We find that solar-driven systems optimised for the lowest specific cost result in CO2eq emissions equal to, or higher than, those from grid-driven reverse osmosis(RO) and in line with PV-RO. This highlights the need to consider the environmental footprint of these systems to ensure that desalination is in line with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 6.
AU - Winchester,B
AU - Huang,G
AU - Beath,H
AU - Sandwell,P
AU - Cen,J
AU - Nelson,J
AU - Markides,C
DO - 10.1038/s41545-024-00335-4
PY - 2024///
SN - 2059-7037
TI - Lifetime optimisation of integrated thermally and electrically driven solar desalination plants
T2 - npj Clean Water
UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41545-024-00335-4
UR - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41545-024-00335-4#Abs1
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/112436
VL - 7
ER -
Jenny Nelson
Professor of Physics
1007, Huxley Building
South Kensington, London, SW7 2AZ