Innovative hybrid waste to energy–parabolic trough plant for power generation and water desalination in the Middle East North Africa region: Jordan as a case study

Abstract

This research proposes a hybrid system consisting of a parabolic trough solar field coupled with a waste incineration facility to produce power and desalinated water in Jordan. To predict the performance of the proposed system, EBSILON Professional (13.02) was used to simulate the entire system and for a more realistic simulation process, a prime sample of 100 tons of municipal waste from Jordan was obtained, processed, and homogenised, after which 4 kg was brought to Germany for laboratory analysis. The laboratory results were inserted into EBSILON. Solar radiation data were adapted from meteonorms and input to EBSILON. Heat transfer between the receiver wall and the heat transfer fluid was analysed to calculate the time required to increase the temperature of the Heat Transfer Fluid from the influent temperature to the desired effluent temperature. The results show that this system can produce 34 MWe of power and 13,824 m3/d of distilled water. On the 1st January, the temperature of the heat transfer fluid in the solar field was increased by 6 °C for 20 min in an open cycle. After 5h, it reached 390 °C in a closed cycle, assuming a fixed direct normal irradiance. Economically, five scenarios were analysed to assess the impact of the cost of heat harvested to produce this amount of water on the annual cost of handling each ton of garbage which was approximately 57 US$ in the first year of operation and 19.5 US$ in the 15th year of plant operation (for the scenario in which the tariff of power sales was considered to evaluate the cost of heat for water desalination).