Techno economic feasibility analysis of Linear Fresnel solar field as thermal source of the MED/TVC desalination system

• A low part of thermal energy of MED/TVC is supported by LF field without TES.
• LF field with TES could support a large amount of MED/TVC thermal energy.
• The scenario of “two LF fields” increases the amount of thermal energy storage.
• Increasing the role of solar thermal energy increases the water production costs.
• 12-fold increase in the MED/TVC scales decreases the LCOW by about 180%.

ABSTRACTThe application of Linear Fresnel (LF) solar field was technically and economically considered as the thermal source of a Multi Effect Desalination Thermal Vapor Compression (MED/TVC) system with a water production rate of 9000-m3/day. The analysis was made on the five years radiation data of Kish Island, located in the Persian Gulf at south of the Iran. The water production costs were considered for three different configurations of the MED/TVC/LF desalination system to determine the required sizes of LF solar field, system costs and also amount of annual fuel savings. The results of the present study shown that the water production costs of the MED/TVC/LF system is obtained as a value between 1.63 $/m3 and 3.09 $/m3 for the systems without thermal storage and with thermal storage, respectively. The thermal storage system would increase the costs of the water production by about 42% and 65% for 6 h and 12 h of thermal storage, respectively. It was found that the water production cost of the MED/TVC/LF system with 67.77% contribution of solar energy and without the thermal storage system is high (3.32 $/m3) as compared to the conventional fossil fuel powered MED/Desalination plants with a water production cost of 1.26 $/m3.