A hybrid photovoltaic/solar chimney seawater desalination plant

Abstract

A novel configuration of solar chimney-PV-water desalination system is proposed to investigate the feasibility of integrating solar power with freshwater production. The solar collector is composed of transparent PV cells to increase the utilization factor, and the installation of a water basin contributes to the generation of freshwater while enabling the cooling of the PV panel. A case study was developed for a rural community in Sharjah to meet the demand for water and electricity. ANSYS Fluent was used to simulate the steady flow and natural convection problem within the solar chimney. A full parametric study for a conventional solar chimney power plant with integrated transparent PV was simulated to investigate the effects of various parameters on air velocity, mass flow rate, air temperature, and turbine output at 850 W/m2 solar radiation. The results showed that the chimney output and efficiency were positively related to chimney height and collector radius, but negatively related to collector height. An analysis was developed to estimate the amount of evaporated and distilled water from the water pool. The results showed that the addition of the transparent PV system and the water basin increased the utilization factor by 20 times compared to the conventional solar chimney power plant. The results showed that the proposed system could simultaneously generate 761,120 kWh of electricity and 2733 tons of distilled water per year.