Sunwater and beyond

Abstract

Due to the increasing water shortages not only in sunny countries, but also in a lot of other states, the demand on freshwater will increase worldwide in the near future. Good examples are the newly industrializing countries. The freshwater demand increases with the wealth of the inhabitants. The so called virtual water must also be taken into account. This is water which is needed to produce products, but it is not included in the final commodity. During the Sunwater project a demonstration plant was planned, modeled, simulated and installed which uses renewable energies to desalinate freshwater with a very high quality. Solar thermal energy was used to convert saltwater from the Red Sea into freshwater. For this purpose an innovative evaporation desalination unit from Germany was used. The complete project was a feasibility study with partners from Germany, Egypt and UK. In this paper a few modifications and additional application possibilities are presented to use this demonstration plant. This includes e. g. other prospects for the heat storage tanks and the usage of the water desalination unit itself.