Local cost of seawater RO desalination based on solar PV and wind energy: Economics, global demand and the impact of full load hours

摘要

Global water demand is increasing whilst the renewable water resource is diminishing. This has resulted in an increase in demand for seawater desalination, with reverse osmosis (RO) accounting for 65% of the 80.9 million m~3/day of desalted water produced globally in 2013. A prevailing concern is high energy demand and availability of fossil fuel resources, resulting in the drive for renewable energy powered desalination systems. In the near future, the increasing desalination demand can be met through SWRO plants powered by hybrid PV-Wind-Battery and Power-to-Gas (PtG) power plants at a cost level competitive with current fossil fuel powered SWRO plants.Hybrid systems allow for higher full load hours and optimal utilization of the installed desalination capacity. In this paper, we provide a global estimate of the water production cost for the 2030 desalination demand with renewable electricity generation costs for 2030. The levelized cost of water (LCOW), which includes water production, electricity, water transportation and water storage costs, ranges from 0.59 ?/m~3 -2.81 ?/m~3 for the 2030 desalination demand. The global system required to meet the 2030 global water demand is found to cost about 9790 billion ? of initial investments. It is possible to overcome the water supply limitations in a sustainable and financially competitive way.