With 16 000 desalination plants around the world already and an expected 15 rise in desalination as the world warms a policy to drive solar desalination is needed.
Solar powered desalination plant cost.
Such systems could potentially serve off grid arid coastal areas to provide an efficient low cost water source.
It s also significantly cheaper.
Solar power costs dropped dramatically in.
Hybrid renewable energy re power plants are comprised of solar photovoltaic and wind power plants for electricity generation.
But because the system can run on solar power without the use of batteries it avoids the large carbon footprint of a typical energy hungry desalination plant.
A completely passive solar powered desalination system developed by researchers at mit and in china could provide more than 1 5 gallons of fresh drinking water per hour for every square meter of solar collecting area.
Alarcón padilla believes that the desalination industry won t change without a policy driver.
There are many types of plants and the development of new ones is rapid and ongoing.
For now solar pv is the cheapest energy available in most places so existing electrically powered revers.
Barnard hopes that the systems will fund each other to create an additional system every five years.
The latest move is a solar powered desalination plant aimed at treating 60 000 square meters of seawater daily for the northeastern city of al khafji.
Solar water solutions desalination technology changes the equation by reducing the life cycle costs of solar powered desalination by more than 70.
Conventional as well as other solar powered desalination technology is energy intensive and costly making it economically unfeasible for anything but large scale installations.
Solar powered desalination cuts energy costs by 90 tsd s system processes up to 10 000 cubic meters of water per day for small to medium farms factories hotels off grid sites and disaster areas.
Levelised cost of water in m 3 indicates the cost of water production from the desalination plant and the cost of water transportation from the desalination plant to the demand site.