Polygeneration in desalination by photovoltaic thermal systems: A comprehensive review

Adewale Giwa, Ahmed Yusuf, Abdallah Dindi and Hammed Abiodun Balogun

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2020, vol. 130, issue C

Abstract: The progress in the production of desalinated water and other products such as electric power, cooling water/air, and heat from photovoltaic thermal (PV-T) and concentrated photovoltaic thermal (CPV-T) systems, often referred to as “polygeneration”, is reviewed in this paper. This review paper discusses the application of PV-T and CPV-T energy for desalination approaches such as humidification dehumidification (HDH), multi-effect distillation (MED), reverse osmosis (RO), solar stills, membrane distillation (MD), and mechanical vacuum compression (MVC). Current methods for assessing the economic viability of PV-T and CPV-T polygeneration systems, including the estimation of installation and balance-of-system cost, price per peak power, feed-in-tariff, and energy pay-back period are discussed. Full-scale and commercial PV-T and CPV-T systems applicable in desalination processes are also reviewed. Research and development activities on polygeneration PV-T and CPV-T systems have continued to improve. However, research on optimum generation of co-products from these systems needs to be intensified in order to ensure widespread practical application. Polygeneration from PV-T systems integrated with desalination have been shown to provide higher efficiencies in grid-connected or stand-alone applications than the single-product systems. For much higher efficiencies, the incorporation of nanofluids as the heat transfer medium and the use of absorbers that are less than 50% covered by PV module have been recommended. On the economic side, the installation costs of PV-T systems are still higher than those of their PV counterparts but PV-T systems provide less environmental impacts and cost reduction in the long run.

Keywords: Desalination; Photovoltaic thermal; Concentrating photovoltaic thermal; Full-scale systems; Economic assessment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032120302379
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:rensus:v:130:y:2020:i:c:s1364032120302379

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600126/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 600126/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2020.109946

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews is currently edited by L. Kazmerski

More articles in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().