Assessment of hybrid energy system configurations to drive brackish water reverse osmosis desalination plant

Abstract EN

This paper studied the different scenarios for producing 100 m3/day of fresh water from brackish water.

The simulation used the renewable energy sources to operate reverse osmosis desalination plant located at Nakhl city, North Sinai, Egypt.

This study can serve 5000 people with the required potable water.

Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewables Pro software is used to obtain the optimal configuration, cost, and capacity of the desalination plant.

There were four scenarios, namely a stand-alone diesel system with a storage element, a photovoltaic system with storage element, wind turbine system with a storage element, and hybrid diesel/wind/PV system with a storage element.

Cost of energy, net present cost, gas emissions, and excess electricity are the main parameters for selecting the optimal case.

The results proved that the hybrid diesel/wind/PV system with a storage battery is the optimal case to produce the required amount of fresh water at Nakhl city, Egypt.

This system consists of a 50 kW diesel generator, a wind turbine with 10 kW rated capacity, 331 photovoltaic panels with 82.7 kW rated capacity, a 36.5 kW converter, and seven strings of lead-acid batteries with 184 kWh nominal capacity.