Abstract
The potential for lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries and supercapacitors (SCs) to overcome long-term (one day) and short-term (a few minutes) solar irradiance fluctuations with high-temporal-resolution (one s) on a photovoltaic-powered reverse osmosis membrane (PV-membrane) system was investigated. Experiments were conducted using synthetic brackish water (5-g/L sodium chloride) with varied battery capacities (100, 70, 50, 40, 30 and 20 Ah) to evaluate the effect of decreasing the energy storage capacities. A comparison was made between SCs and batteries to determine system performance on a “partly cloudyday”. With fully charged batteries, clean drinking water was produced at an average specific energy consumption (SEC) of 4 kWh/m3. The daily water production improved from 663 L to 767 L (16% increase) and average electrical conductivity decreased from 310 µS/cm to 274 μS/cm (12% improvement), compared to the battery-less system. Enhanced water production occurred when the initial battery capacity was >50 Ah. On a “sunny” and “very cloudy” day with fully charged batteries, water production increased by 15% and 80%, while water quality improved by 18% and 21%, respectively. The SCs enabled a 9% increase in water production and 13% improvement in the average SEC on the “partly cloudy day” when compared to the reference system performance (without SCs).
Highlights
IntroductionThe International Energy Agency has reported that around 45% of the population of Sub-Saharan Africa lives without access to electricity, with this figure dropping to 26% in rural areas [1]
The daily water production improved from 663 L to 767 L (16% increase) and average electrical conductivity decreased from 310 μS/cm to 274 μS/cm (12% improvement), compared to the battery-less system
A further reason for high power consumption is that the motor is supplied with a constant voltage of 48 Vdc when connected to batteries
Summary
The International Energy Agency has reported that around 45% of the population of Sub-Saharan Africa lives without access to electricity, with this figure dropping to 26% in rural areas [1]. It is estimated by the United Nations that over 330 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa are still relying on unimproved drinking water sources (unprotected wells, springs and surface water) [2]. A direct correlation exists between the availability of electricity and drinking water, with the effect of energy poverty indicating that the population living with electricity is very likely to have access to an improved water source (and vice versa) [3]. Opportunities for decentralized technologies exist for the applications where little water and energy infrastructure exists and the population density is sparse
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