Technical and economic study of reverse osmosis water desalination combined with solar photovoltaic panels

Because of the water shortage for two thirds of the world s population, desalination of existing water resources is the most important way to overcome the water crisis. The reverse osmosis system using solar energy and photovoltaic panels (PV-RO) is one of the most promising and effective methods of water treatment. This article examines the technical and economic aspects and important parameters affecting the investment cost and the performance of PV-RO. This technology has a very high potential for technical development in order to provide drinking water in small systems, especially in areas far from power grid.The energy consumption of PV-RO seawater desalination is 4.0-6.0 kWh/m3 and typical current capacities is under 100 m3/day. Desalinated seawater by PV-RO costs 11.7-15.6 USD/m3. Among the conventional desalination plants, PV-RO presents more than 50% of installed capacity. From the technical point of view, it has been shown that adding continuous single and double axis tracking to a PV-RO unit resulted in an increase in the permeate gain of 43% and 62% respectively.The future of PV-RO with its high potential to reduce the energy needed and compete with other technologies is a promising perspective. There is still a great research interest to improve efficiencies of all the system individual components.