Sustainable fresh water and power production by integrating PV panel in inclined solar still

Abstract

Present work is an effort to study the performance of a PV panel integrated solar still to generate power and to do desalination process to meet the water and power scarcity issues. The system performance is experimentally investigated from different aspects such as still productivity, still efficiency, PV panel power production, PV panel efficiency, and exergy efficiency. Results show that the maximum distillate output of 7.3 kg was obtained when inclined solar panel basin solar still with the sidewall and bottom insulation. The freshwater production from inclined solar panel basin solar still with the sidewall and bottom insulation, inclined solar panel basin solar still with Sidewall insulation and inclined solar panel basin solar still without any insulation was 7.3 kg, 4.4 kg and 3.7 kg respectively. The daily energy efficiency and exergy efficiency of inclined solar panel basin solar still with the sidewall and bottom insulation are higher compared to other cases. The daily efficiency of 34.5%, 38.3% and 71.2% and exergy efficiency of 1.3%, 2.3% and 4.5% was recorded for inclined solar panel basin solar still without any insulation, inclined solar panel basin solar still with the sidewall insulation and inclined solar panel basin solar still with sidewall and bottom insulation respectively.