Parabolic-trough plant integrated with direct-contact membrane distillation system: Concept, simulation, performance, and economic evaluation

This paper investigates performance and economic evaluation of integrating 50 MWe parabolic-trough (PT) plant with direct-contact membrane distillation (DCMD) system for electricity and freshwater production in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The evaluations of PT plant were performed utilizing SAM software. Maximum and minimum electrical energy generation was estimated to be 13.5 GWh and 7.71 GWh in May and December, respectively. Similarly, the cooling water requirement fluctuated from 856 m(3)/day to 1440 m(3)/day in December and May, respectively. The economic evaluation showed that the nominal and real levelized electricity cost was 24.54 cents per kWh and 19.3833 cents per kWh, respectively. The performance evaluation of DCMD system was performed by solving DCMD mathematical model in MATLAB (R) Software. An increase in feed temperature from 30 degrees C to 45 degrees C increased the permeate flux from 5.19 kg/m(2) h to 20.01 kg/m(2)h, and evaporation efficiency from 39.2% to 54.98%, respectively. Furthermore, it was assessed that proposed PT plant integrated with DCMD system could produce up to 14.33 m(3) of freshwater per day with a water production cost of $0.64/m(3). It was revealed that the integration of DCMD system with PT plant could be a sustainable and economical approach to cope with increasing demand of freshwater and electricity.This work has been funded by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) of the Korean Government (MSIP) (NRF-2017R1D1A1B03031587). This work has also been funded by the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP), and the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy (MOTIE) of the Republic of Korea (No. 20153010130460). Mr. Mujeeb Iqbal Soomro would like to thank the Higher Education Commission (HEC) and Government of Pakistan for a scholarship under the project titled "HRD Initiative-MS leading to Ph.D. program for faculty development for UESTPS, Phase-1, and Batch-IV" for Hanyang University, South Korea