Solar Photovoltaic Power Generation for Distillation Process

Abstract

Indonesia is an archipelago which is one of the countries with the longest beaches in the world. One of the great potentials of the sea can be used to produce freshwater in coastal areas. One of the processes of converting seawater into freshwater vapor is the distillation process. The freshwater vapor condenses and turns into water. Distillation is carried out by evaporating seawater so that the freshwater is separated from the salt. In this research, the distillation process is assisted by a solar power plant with photovoltaic panels. The hardware design consists of a solar panel, solar charge controller, battery, inverter, pump, electric heater, temperature sensor, and level sensor. The solar panel uses a total of 1200Wp with a voltage of 12 V. The battery uses a 12V 100Ah battery and a 1000W electric heater. Meanwhile, the pump power is 48W. From the test results, it was found that in one hour, 1.3 liters of freshwater were obtained with a total capacity of 10 liters of water. The use of solar photovoltaic in a distillation system would be better if combined with direct solar energy heating methods.