Energy Consumption and Water Production Costs of Desalination Technologies in PLN

Abstract

Two main technologies are currently installed in PLN consist of thermal processes and membrane processes. Thermal processes include multistage flash distillation (MSF) and multi-effect distillation (MED) while the membrane process used is reverse osmosis (RO). The number of RO installed in PLN has rapidly increased in the last decade reached nearly 57% from about 46 units of desalination technology installed in PLN. In 2017, the total of installed capacity is 2,486 m3/h and around 70% of the desalination units are in the capacity range of ≤ 50 m3/h. Therefore, This paper focuses mainly on desalination units with a capacity of ≤ 50 m3/h, which is the most widely used capacity in PLN. The primary goal of this paper is to asses the contribution of the various factors for water production costs. The results of the study show that, the energy cost is responsible for around 60% to 70% of the produced water cost in thermal processes and about 30% of the produced water cost in RO, and RO is the right choice for the PLN power plants because energy consumption and costs at RO are lower than MSF and MED.