Autonomous reverse osmosis units driven by RE sources experiences and lessons learned

Abstract

Desalination matching with renewable energy sources (RES) offers a promising future prospect for covering the fundamental needs of water and power supply in remote regions, where the connection to the public electrical grid is not economical affordable or is not feasible. One important application is the use of hybrid systems, wind turbines and photovoltaics, to drive seawater or brackish water reverse osmosis desalination units. This paper presents CRES autonomous hybrid (wind, solar energy) reverse osmosis system (RO) for seawater desalination and the experience gained after many years of operation. The system has been installed at CRES wind-park at Lavrio, location close to Athens. Measurements that have been taken as well as lessons learned from the “new” hybrid RO system are presented. Proposals for a more economical and effective unit are also presented. Also, a brief overview and comparison with similar systems installed around the world will be presented within this paper. Final, the main purpose of this paper is to prove that the matching of the two technologies is a feasible alternative and also to convince people that considering important parameters (design, RES selection, material selection) could be a promising solution.