Renewable Energy Powered Water Treatment Systems

Abstract

There are many motivations for choosing renewable energy technologies to provide the necessary energy to power water treatment systems for reuse and desalination. These range from the lack of an existing electricity grid, particularly in remote areas, to securing future energy and water supplies, to purely financial incentives. While many renewable energy technologies exist the two dominant ones used for powering desalination systems are PV modules and wind turbines. While wave power devices are a less mature technology, there are definitely synergies for desalination if these systems can be demonstrated to last 20 years in the harsh marine environment. Wind energy exhibits the lowest cost of electricity produced, while solar electricity is the highest. However, PV modules have a definite advantage as they contain no moving parts, thus enabling them to operate well in harsh conditions for over 20 years.