A review of the water desalination systems integrated with renewable energy

Water and energy are indispensable entities for any flourishing life and civilization. The water and energy scarcities have emerged due to the dramatic growth in the population, standards of living, and the rapid development of the agricultural and industrial sectors. Desalination seems to be one of the most promising solutions to the water problem; however, it is an intensive energy process. The integration of the renewable energy into water desalination systems has become increasingly attractive due to the growing demand for the water and energy, and the reduction of the contributions to the carbon footprint. The intensive investigations on the conventional desalination systems, especially in the oil-rich countries have somewhat overshadowed the progress and implementation of the renewable energy desalination (RED) systems. The economic performance evaluation of the RED systems and its comparison with conventional systems is not conclusive due to many varying factors related to the level of technology, the source of energy availability, and the government subsidy. The small RED plants have a high capital cost, low efficiency and productivity which make RED systems uncompetitive with the conventional ones. However, the selection of the small RED plants for the remote arid areas with small water demands is viable due to the elimination of the high cost of the water transportation, and the connection to the electricity grid. The purpose of this paper is to review the technology, energy, and cost of the recent available desalination systems and their potential to be integrated with the renewable energy resources. This review suggests that the solar still distillation (SD) system, which is simply a natural evaporation-condensation process, is the most practical renewable desalination technique to be used in the remote arid areas; however, a further research is required to enhance their performance and to increase the productivities of these systems