“Energy Tower” combined with pumped storage and desalination: Optimal design and analysis

The “Energy Tower” (ET) is a power plant project which uses hot dry air and seawater to produce electricity. An optimized design of a system that is a combination of an ET, pumped storage and seawater desalination plant is considered. A model set covering each subsystem, and results of the optimized design for a project in the area of Eilat are presented. The additional benefit from combining the systems comes from an efficient use of the energy in the brine water coming from the desalination process, and from using pumped storage in an unconventional way. The benefits of the combined system lead to an increase of 14% in the annual net profit, compared to the sum of profits from optimally designed stand-alone systems.