International Journal of Renewable Energy Research-IJRER
Solar Thermal Desalination: Sustainable Alternative for Sultanate of Oman
Abstract
Desalination plays critical role in filling the gap between fresh water demand and availability in water scarce Sultanate of Oman since 1976. Installed desalination capacity in the country has almost increased by 60 times that in 1976 with increasing fresh water demand. Even though desalination share in meeting the fresh water demand is increasing, 80-85% of fresh water demand today is still satisfied with ground water. This is leading to increased soil salinity in recent years affecting the crop production. All the planned and installed desalination plants in the country use conventional fuels for their operation. None of the plant is based on any form of renewable energy source. Consumption of fossil fuels for the operation of plants is increasing at an average rate of 3-5% affecting the net export for the country. Sultanate of Oman is considered to be one of the most suitable destinations for solar energy applications and can play a vital and sustainable role in meeting the gap between the demand and supply of fresh water using solar thermal desalination. This paper emphasizes on addressing this aspect for the country. An overview of present desalination status and fresh water demand, fuel requirements, solar energy availability, thermal desalination technologies and solar thermal technologies has been presented in the paper. Conventional thermal desalination and solar thermal technologies for same capacity have been compared for their suitability on the scale of 1 to 5 for various factors based on their suitability for Sultanate of Oman. This paper also discusses few of the challenges and barriers in implementation of solar thermal desalination in the country. Fixed focus type Scheffler dish reflectors (SDR) are suggested as one of the best option to be coupled with multi effect desalination technology for small to medium capacity decentralized type plants. Parabolic trough collectors (PTC) coupled with CCGT or OCGT plants would be a feasible solution for higher capacity desalination plants.
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DOI (PDF): https://doi.org/10.20508/ijrer.v8i2.7209.g7363
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