A Small RO and MCDI Coupled Seawater Desalination Plant and Its Performance Simulation Analysis and Optimization

This paper studies energy consumption management of seawater Reverse Osmosis (RO) desalination plants to maintain and enhance the Voltage Stability (VS) of Power Systems (PS) with Photovoltaic (PV) plant integration. We proposed a voltage-based management algorithm to determine the maximum power consumption for RO plants. The algorithm uses power flow study to determine the RO plant power consumption allowed within the voltage-permissible limits, considering the RO process constraints in order to maintain the desired fresh water supply. Three cases were studied for the proposed RO plant: typical operation with constant power consumption, controlled operation using ON/OFF scheduling of the High-Pressure Pumps (HPPs) and controlled operation using Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) control. A modified IEEE 30-bus system with a variable load was used as a case study with integration of three PV plants of 75 MWp total power capacity. The adopted 33.33 MW RO plant has a maximum capacity of 200,000 m3/day of fresh water production. The results reveal that while typical operation of RO plants can lead to voltage violation, applying the proposed load management algorithm can maintain the vs. of the PS. The total transmission power loss and power lines loading were also reduced. However, the study shows that applying VFD control is better than using ON/OFF control because the latter involves frequent starting up/shutting down the RO trains, which consequently requires flushing and cleaning procedures. Moreover, the specific energy consumption (SEC) and RO plant recover ratio decreases proportionally to the VFD output. Furthermore, the power consumption of the RO plant was optimized using the PSO technique to avoid unnecessary restriction of RO plant operation and water shortage likelihood.

Integrated approach in eco-design strategy for small RO desalination plants powered by photovoltaic energy

Impact of solar energy cost on water production cost of seawater desalination plants in Egypt

With a reverse osmosis (RO) desalination plant designed to satisfy only the contracted-for water supply, the water company would be missing out on potential benefits that could have been obtained selling water in periods of high demand. On the other hand, sizing the RO desalination plant to produce water to satisfy peak demand means incurring additional costs as well as having the plant partially idle during periods of average or low demand. A model was developed using Excel macros to perform dynamic programming to optimize the capacity expansion of an RO desalination plant. The objective function is to maximize the present value of the total net benefits over the lifetime of the RO desalination plant. The model can be used to test different scenarios to capture time-variant tourism demand and price uncertainties on investment decisions. This study focuses on tourism dominated arid coastal regions, using Sharm El Sheikh (Sharm) in South Sinai, Egypt, as an example.19 RO plants in Sharm were surveyed and data were collected including unit production costs, O&M costs, energy consumption rates, contracted-for water supply, and utilization. Unit production cost of an RO desalination plant varies according to the degree of operation of the plant. This fact has to be taken into consideration when calculating the costs of RO desalination and when deciding on the plant capacity in order to maximize the total net benefit. Using the collected data, cost functions were developed for O&M costs as a function of utilization and plant capacity. The cost model calculated similar values to the actual total net benefit for one of the surveyed RO plant taken as an example. Using the optimization model, the maximum total net benefit is obtained with a smaller installed capacity than the actual case. A modified pricing structure is suggested in the paper that ties the water selling price to consumption in an effort to reduce demand in excess of contracted-for water supply aiding the water company to fulfill its contractual commitments to all users. However, price elasticity has to be taken into consideration to determine the impact of price change on water demand.

Reverse osmosis (RO) desalination currently plays a vital role in addressing the critical and growing issue of water scarcity through desalination of brackish waters (BWRO) and seawater (SWRO). To ensure sustainable operation and longer membrane lifetime in an RO system, it is crucial to monitor and evaluate the feedwater quality of the desalination process. This article highlights the operational challenges faced by seawater and brackish water RO desalination plants through a review of full-scale plant membrane autopsies. The operational issues of particulate, colloidal, inorganic, organic, and biological fouling thus highlighted require to be managed and monitored for plants to perform efficiently. The paper then explores the potential and limitations of conventional and novel analytical methods such as modified fouling index (MFI), transparent exopolymer particles (TEP), liquid chromatography-organic carbon detection (LC-OCD), etc. as tools for the understanding and control of these issues. The application of these tools is then studied through a review of available RO feedwater quality which, compared to supplier and literature guidelines, allows to underscore the difficulties of matching these guidelines and finding proper control targets and measures for organic, biological, oxidative and inorganic fouling. Finally, the paper discusses an overview of areas of improvement on which to focus future research.

Thermodynamic analysis of a solar thermal facilitated membrane seawater desalination process

Recent years have seen a substantial reduction of the specific energy consumption (SEC) in seawater reverse osmosis (RO) desalination due to improvements made in hydraulic energy recovery (HER) as well as RO membranes and related process technologies. Theoretically, significant potential for further reduction in energy consumption may lie in harvesting the high chemical potential contained in RO concentrate using salinity gradient power technologies. Herein, "osmotic energy recovery" (OER) is evaluated in a seawater RO plant that includes state-of-the-art RO membranes, plant designs, operating conditions, and HER technology. Here we assume the use of treated wastewater effluent as the OER dilute feed, which may not be available in suitable quality or quantity to allow operation of the coupled process. A two-stage OER configuration could reduce the SEC of seawater RO plants to well below the theoretical minimum work of separation for state-of-the-art RO-HER configurations with a breakeven OER CAPEX equivalent to 42% of typical RO-HER plant cost suggesting significant cost savings may also be realized. At present, there is no commercially viable OER technology; hence, the feasibility of using OER at seawater RO plants remains speculative, however attractive.

Membrane capacitive deionization-reverse electrodialysis hybrid system for improving energy efficiency of reverse osmosis seawater desalination

Fresh water demand is growing drastically in many parts of the world. Desalination of seawater, brackish water, and waste water is one solution to meet the demands of fresh water. Currently, reverse osmosis (RO) desalination process is one of the best methods for the desalination process. In this study, a modified controller design is proposed for RO desalination system based on symbiotic organisms search (SOS) algorithm. A multivariable model of RO desalination plant is considered for experimentation. The RO system considered here is first decoupled using a simplified decoupling process to obtain two non-interacting loops. Then, a proportional-integral-derivative controller with second order derivative (PID-DD) scheme based on SOS algorithm is proposed for each loop to find optimal control parameters of the RO system. To design the PID-DD controller for each loop, integral of squared error (ISE) is considered as fitness function. Four other state-of-the-art optimization algorithms, namely, teacher-learner-based-optimization (TLBO), differential evolution (DE), particle swarm optimization (PSO), and artificial bee colony (ABC), algorithms are also tested for the considered system. To show competitiveness of the proposed SOS-based PID-DD controller, a comparative study based on time domain analysis is performed. Results show the SOS-based PID-DD controller is superior to other PID-DD controllers.

Desalination is a method for producing water for human consumption, irrigation or industrial utilisation. In this study, a reverse osmosis (RO) system for brackish water desalination was theoretically investigated to produce both potable drinking and agricultural water with a lower overall and specific energy consumption. As a case study, the Main Outfall Drain in Iraq is used as the brackish water source. A numerical model based on solution-diffusion theory was developed in Matlab Simulink and used to analyse the design and performance of an RO system. The effect of feed water temperature, pressure, salinity and recovery ratio on the efficiency of the whole RO system was investigated for a wide range of design considerations. The design of an RO system for this application was optimised and economic assessment carried out. Results show that with boosting recovery ratio from 30% to 60%, the specific energy of desalinated water production below 400ppm was reduced from 2.8kWh/m3 to a more economically favourable value of 0.8kWh/m3, when utilizing a pressure exchanger as a recovery device. Salt rejection was reduced from 97% to 88% to obtain large quantities of water for irrigation with an acceptable salinity (<1600ppm), for agricultural use. The reduction in salt rejection is influenced by the feed water temperature and pressure; also the average pore diameter of the RO membrane and in turn determines the reduction in system energy consumption. It was found that the total cost to produce 24,000m3/d of water from a feed salinity of 15,000ppm and a water quality of <400ppm would be 0.11£/m3 with a corresponding investment cost of £14.4million for the drinking water, and for irrigation) obtained product <1600ppm) are £0.9/m3 and £11.3million.

Design of a small mobile PV-driven RO water desalination plant to be deployed at the northwest coast of Egypt

Objectives The production cost of reverse osmosis (RO) seawater desalination plant is determined by the CAPEX (Capital expenditure) and OPEX (Operating expenditure). In detail, CAPEX and OPEX are composed of direct cost, overhead cost, electricity cost, and other O&M costs. However, CAPEX and OPEX may vary by country and region. Therefore, this study tries to estimate the production cost by calculating the construction and maintenance costs depending on production capacities based on the operation results such as TDS concentration and the energy consumption from a seawater desalination plant in Korea. Methods A two-stage RO based seawater desalination plant with a capacity of 10 MIGD (45,000 m3/d) was used in this study. The plant consists of a 2 MIGD (9,000 m3/d) unit having DABF (Dissolved air bio-ball filter) and UF (Ultrafiltration) as pretreatment processes, and another 8 MIGD (36,000 m3/d) unit having DABF and DMF (Dual media filtration) as pretreatment processes. To estimate the production cost, construction and maintenance costs were calculated by using GWI's Desaldata cost estimator. CAPEX (Capital expenditure) was calculated based on production capacity, recovery rate, TDS concentration and temperature of seawater, while OPEX (Operating expenditure) was calculated based on production capacity, country, energy consumption, and electricity unit price. Results and Discussion The energy consumptions from EMS (Energy Management System) were 5.48 kWh/m3 at SLC (9,000 m3/d) and 3.4 kWh/m3 at MLC (45,000 m3/d), respectively. In the CAPEX, MLC was reduced by 395,954 ￦/m3 compared to SLC, and the LLC was lower by 192,019 ￦/m3 than MLC. Overall, CAPEX decreased as the production capacity increased. The CAPEX of small plants with production capacity between 10,000 and 50,000 m3/d was significantly different; however, there was no significant difference in larger plants having a capacity above 100,000 m3/d. The OPEX for the annual production capacity showed a sizable difference with 742.3 ￦/m3, 636.5 ￦/m3 and 580.3 ￦/m3 for SLC, MLC, and LLC, respectively. The electricity cost was a substantial portion of OPEX. Also, the production costs based on the interest rates (3% and 5%) were 1,326-1,384 ￦/m3, 1,163-1,209 ￦/m3, and 1,023-1,070 ￦/m3 for SLC, MLC, and LLC, respectively. The results were consistent with 1.0 US$/m3, which is the average production costs presented from other references. Conclusions The production cost estimated using the Desaldata cost estimator based on the CAPEX and OPEX tends to decrease as the capacity increases. However, when the capacity increased over 50,000 m3/d, the production cost decreased by an average of 40 ￦/m3. Thus the decrement of production cost reduced. From these results, the production cost of tap water through seawater desalination was estimated between 1,023 ￦/m3 and 1,070 ￦/m3 above 100,000 m3/d. Therefore, it is difficult to introduce a large-scale desalination plant in Korea, because the average tap water price was 834.6 ￦ in Korea in 2017. However, It is expected that the seawater desalination will be introduced as an alternative water source whenever drinking water price rises, or when the quantity of available drinking water sources reduce due to climate change and water pollution, or whenever energy consumption is reduced as a result of the steady development of the component technologies such as the reverse osmosis membrane, high-pressure pump, and energy recovery device. Key words: Reverse osmosis seawater desalination plant, Water price, Capital expenditure, Operating expenditure, Energy consumption

Capital cost estimation of RO plants: GCC countries versus southern Europe

Due to the continuously increasing demand for fresh water in the desert and remote areas, the development of non-conventional water resources in Egypt is essential. The most advanced and promising desalination system is the reverse osmosis (RO) system. In this paper, a 5000 m3/day RO desalination plant in the city of Nuweiba in Sinai, Egypt is taken as a case study. The measured data of the plant are recorded during 5 years of its normal operation. Also, experimental tests are carried out on site to investigate the influence of the main design and -operating parameters on the plant performance. The RO system is found to be sensitive to the variation in the feed water temperature, pressure and salinity. The used maintenance schedule is also seen to be suitable for the plant, since the change in plant performance during the operation period is not noticeable. On the other hand, a cost analysis is carried out on the RO plant components. The major factors affecting the cost of product water of this plant are the power consumption and capital cost. Surprisingly, the chemical treatment cost is one of the lowest in percentage. In this case, the power consumption cost is 35.1% and the capital cost is 33.6% and that of maintenance and repairs represent only 4.9% while the chemical treatment represents 10.6% of the total cost.

Behaviour of the asynchronous electric motors to reduction of energy consumption in reverse osmosis plants