Where Need To Use Solar Powered Desalination Plant

KYSEARO has recently developed its latest solar desalination system, to generate fresh water / potable water from the sea / underground, powered by solar energy. It is the forefront breakthrough in combining PV (photo-voltaic) and SWRO technology.

To solve the problem of water shortage, some islands implement the long-distance water diversion project, which is certainly effective but cannot fundamentally solve the problem. High costs, both in money and energy, limits the usefulness of water diversion project as a way to provide potable water on islands. On the other hand, SWRO, with its low cost and high operability, becomes the most promising method in water supply treatment.

Generally speaking, SWRO is a process that removes minerals from salty water without the limitation of geological location or climate change. It’s an effective and environmental-friendly way to solve the water scarcity problems on islands.

solar desalination system

In areas without electricity power supply, using traditional fossil fuels ( such as coal and oil ) to run SWRO system is a normal practice. However, this practice badly damages the eco-environment and threats the marine lives. Moreover, the cost for delivery and maintenance of fuel is very high. Being a renewable and sustainable clean energy, photovoltaic solar technology is attracting more and more attentions. The development of photovoltaic solar energy technology on sea water desalination equipments could be a good application in dry regions , which can solve the water shortage problem and at the same time avoid environmental pollution.

solar powered desalination

Introduce KYSEARO Solar Powered Desalination Plants Series

KYSEARO has developed its unique 40 TPD SWRO system. With PV solar power supply plus batteries or diesel generator to combine into a hybrid system, it can produce maximum 40 tons of fresh water within 24 hours.

solar desalination plant
solar powered desalination system

1. Parameters

1-1 Main Power Consumption Parts

Total power of the system is 13 KW, including 2 sets of centrifugal pumps (AC 380V / 3 phase), and 1 set of HP pump. All the pumps (raw water pump, HP pump, CIP pump) adopts frequency converter for start-up control.

1-2 Power supply system

Electric power is supplied 100% by PV, which comprises of the solar panels and central intelligent control system. In this unit there are 56 pieces of 250W polycrystalline silicon solar panels, which are divided into 4 arrays of 14 pcs each in series connection. Each panel has size 1640mm992mm40mm, with rated working voltage of 37.5 V. The total power of the 4 PV arrays reaches 14KW.

The PLC control system has output with LCD display, and by the same touch screen can input the instructions. Considering the risk of typhoon weather on islands, the panels are wrapped by a strengthened steel reinforcement to increase wind-resistance protections against strong hurricanes.

1-3 Pretreatment

1-3-1 Multi-media filter

After raw water tank with sedimentation effect, the water should pass through a multi-media filter to further lower down its turbidity and SDI (silt density index) to reach the quality for RO process. The filtering precision of quartz sand is 10-15?m. The diameter of small particle is 10-100?m. So suspended solids can be effectively blocked then permeate water is clear.

1-3-2. Security filter

Security filter is the last step to protect the reverse osmosis system. In this system , we implant 2 set security filter with filtering precision of 5?m and 1?m to keep the remaining small particles away from the high-pressure pumps and RO membrane elements .

1-3-3. RO modules

RO process is the most important stage of the whole system. It can effectively remove any salts in the water. The system configures with 4 DOW membranes model SW30-400 with minimum salt rejection of 98 %.

solar bwro system
solar swro system

2. Running Costs Analysis

Currently there are 2 main ways to get fresh water on the islands, as follows;

1)Directly buy fresh water on coastal cities and transport to the islands. The cost of this method is very high combining transportation cost around USD4.60/ton and buying price USD0.77/ton resulted in total USD5.37/ton.

2)Use diesel generator to supply electricity to run SWRO unit on the island. There are 2 main costs: transportation of fuel (around USD0.0046/L), and the fuel price (around USD0.95/L). As the diesel generator has fuel consumption of 5L per hour to run KYSEARO’s 40TPD unit, thus the round-up consumption of fuel in 24 hours is 120L resulted in final cost of USD3/cubic meter. Besides, there also exists an equipment maintenance cost for the generator and the SWRO unit. Obviously, this method is cheaper than option 1 but it will pollute the environment because of the discharge of gas.

KYSEARO’s standard SWRO machine has shown its extraordinary economic performance on energy consumption. Based on the total installed capacity of 13kW, the energy consumption is 7.8 kWh/Ton. The overall cost is 0.936USD/Ton if charged by regular network electricity price of 0.12 USD/kWh.

By KYSEARO’s PV-SWRO unit, the running cost can be regarded as only the maintenance charges i.e. routinely change of filter elements and chemical dosing consumptions. Normally speaking, the average cost can be lowered to USD0.38/cubic meter.

Clearly, from the perspective of energy conservation, environmental protection, or in terms of cost budget, KYSEARO’s PV-SWRO option is far better than diesel -powered generator solution.

3. Summary:

For PV solar SWRO system, applying solar energy is operational, safe, reliable, non-polluting, simple maintenance and long life-lasting. Moreover, it has a great value for those area where electricity is in short. KYSEARO has strong technical ability and rich experience in PV-SWRO application with completed and sophisticated support in this field.

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