TECHNO-ECONOMIC EVALUATION OF A SOLAR POWERED WATER DESALINATION PLANT.

Water desalination technologies and their possible coupling with solar energy were evaluated. The topic has a remarkable interest especially for the countries located within the Southern Mediterranean belt, generally characterized by vast arid and isolated areas with practically no access to electric power from the national grid. Economic factors being one of the main barriers to the diffusion of solar devices so far, an attempt was made to estimate water production cost for two different solar desalination systems: reverse osmosis and multiple effect evaporation process driven by photovoltaic and solar thermal energy, respectively. The results, obtained for plants with a capacity varying between 500 and 5,000 m³/d, were compared to the values relevant to a conventional desalination system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]