Desalination 281 (2011) 379–387

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Desalination
j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s ev i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / d e s a l

Simulation and evaluation of the coupling of desalination units to parabolic-trough

solar power plants in the Mediterranean region
Patricia Palenzuela a, b, Guillermo Zaragoza b,⁎, Diego Alarcón b, Julián Blanco b
a
University of Almería, 04120 Almería, Spain
b
CIEMAT-Plataforma Solar de Almería, Ctra. de Senés s/n, 04200 Tabernas, Almería, Spain

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Integrated power and desalination plants (IPDP) may provide a key solution for the pressing freshwater
Received 26 January 2011 deficit and energy problems in many regions of the world. The current study investigates the potential of low-
Received in revised form 10 August 2011 temperature multi-effect distillation (LT-MED) and thermal vapor compression multi-effect distillation (TVC-
Accepted 11 August 2011
MED) coupled with a concentrating solar power (CSP) plant, taking also into account a reverse osmosis (RO)
Available online 13 September 2011
unit connected to the same power plant. The thermodynamic performance of the proposed schemes of IPDP
Keywords:
has been evaluated by the assessment of the net output thermal capacity and the net power cycle efficiency of
Multi-effect distillation the different configurations, together with the estimation of the size of the solar field required to provide the
Reverse osmosis corresponding thermal capacity. The results show that the combination with LT-MED is more efficient
Solar desalination thermodynamically than with TVC-MED. Also, the CSP plant coupled with TVC-MED is more cost-effective
Cogeneration than the independent processes because it requires a smaller solar field. The integration of a MED plant
reduces the cooling requirements of a CSP power plant but the CSP + RO combination has a better
thermodynamic efficiency. However, the difference with respect to CSP + LT-MED is small, so the latter can be
more convenient in some cases.
© 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction concept, as that combination could potentially solve power and water
problems in many of the world's arid and semi-arid areas [5]. Moreover,
Nowadays many regions of the world are suffering from water and power and water production in an integrated system is of interest for
energy problems but water scarcity will become critical during the first reducing the cost of solar generation by making better use of a common
half of this century. Competition for water resources exists at all levels infrastructure and the economics of scale of the steam turbine [6].
and is forecasted to increase with demands for water supply in almost all The need of generating water and power was analyzed by El-Nashar
countries. In 2030, 47% of world population will be living in areas of high [7] more than two decades ago for the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, considering
water stress. More than 5 billion people (67% of the world population) the combination of steam and gas turbine plants (for power generation)
may still be without access to adequate sanitation in 2030 [1]. Moreover, with multistage flash (MSF) distillation and reverse osmosis (RO)
climatic change and climatic variability can have a dramatic impact on processes. Since then, several different configurations have been
water supplies, the most obvious being drought [2]. analyzed for integrating power and desalination plants (IPDP). A review
According to the World Energy Outlook 2010 [3], in the currently has been presented by the same author considering several options in
accepted scenario the world primary energy demand increases by 36% association with the MSF desalination process [8]. Four of them
between 2008 and 2035. Clearly, alternative sources of energy will consisted of the combination of gas turbine plants with MSF units, and
need to be considered in order to satisfy that demand. For a the remaining two of the combination of either back pressure steam
sustainable water and energy future, many people envision a strong turbine or extraction-condensing steam turbine with the same
participation of renewables in general and, in particular, solar energy, desalination process. Other desalination systems different than MSF
which has the highest potential of all renewable energies [4]. have been considered by other authors. Cogeneration with two low-
Therefore, technologies must be developed to use solar energy for temperature heat sources (waste heat from a diesel generator power
solving future energy and water problems. station, and steam from an existing power station) feeding a low-
In the current context of concentrating solar power (CSP) technology temperature MED (LT-MED) desalination plant was evaluated by
development, CSP and water cogeneration (CSP + D) is a very attractive Kronenberg and Lokiec [9] and the advantages of the LT-MED plants
in dual-purpose applications were highlighted. The benefits of integrat-
ing RO units with existing coal-fired power/desalination plants in the
⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: + 34 950 387941. Middle East were assessed by Kamal [10]. Also, a coal-fired power plant
E-mail address: [email protected] (G. Zaragoza). integrated with a thermal vapor compression MED (TVC-MED) was

0011-9164/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.desal.2011.08.014
380 P. Palenzuela et al. / Desalination 281 (2011) 379–387

analyzed in the northern coastal zone of China [11]. In addition, hybrid desalination systems used were RO, MED and a combination of both.
desalination systems have been analyzed in combination with power Also, a thermal and environmental analysis for two CSP+ D schemes
plants. Hamed [12] presented an overview of combining MSF and was published by Alrobaei [25]. The first configuration consisted of a CSP
reverse osmosis (RO) with power generation systems. Almulla et al. [13] plant where parabolic-trough solar collectors were used, coupled with a
carried out an evaluation of a triple hybrid system that includes the RO/LT-MED hybrid system. The second one was the same but
integration of the three desalination processes MSF, multi-effect integrating a gas turbine unit with the solar power plant. The results
distillation (MED) and RO with a power plant. Moreover, the use of showed that the latter scheme seemed the most effective in terms of
other energy sources has been proposed by Darwish et al. [14,15], who technical, economic and environmental sustainability.
studied the prospects of using nuclear cogeneration plants consisting in Regarding computer models, it has been shown that the use of
the integration of MED, MSF and thermal vapor compression (TVC) simulation tools like IPSEpro and EES allows the techno-economical
desalting plants with a steam cycle in Kuwait. optimization of the design of power systems, like power cogeneration
The choice of one or other configuration for the generation of water systems with hybrid renewable and fossil power in MENA countries [26]
and power depends on many factors such as the required power to and parabolic trough solar power plants with the same conditions as the
water ratio, cost of fuel energy charged to the desalting process, Andasol-1 plant [27]. Also, a global thermo-economic optimization of an
electricity sales, capital costs, and local requirements. Some authors actual steam power plant with a MSF desalination unit based on
have carried out economic analysis to assess this. The impact of the separated local optimizations of different plant units showed that the
variation of fuel cost, load and local requirements in a cogeneration local optimization is a very powerful tool in order to achieve a cost-
plant was analyzed in a combined plant which employed a back effective operation, and for a better plant design [28]. In addition, El-
pressure steam turbine power plant and a MSF unit [16]. The study Nashar [29] carried out a design optimization of cogeneration systems to
concluded that water and electricity costs are highly affected by fuel produce power and water incorporating equipment reliability
costs and consumption. The water costs from several cogeneration considerations.
schemes consisting of a steam cycle combined with LT-MED, MSF and This paper presents a thermodynamic analysis of different config-
RO were assessed by Kamal [17]. The results showed that the RO process urations for the combination of desalination plants with CSP plants. The
connected to a steam power plant had the lowest water cost. Moreover, first three cases consider different concepts of MED plants (LT-MED and
a thermoeconomic analysis of cogeneration water and power plant was TVC-MED) combined with a CSP plant. The fourth configuration consists
made by Mahbub et al. [18]. The study included a combined cycle power of a RO plant connected to the same power plant considered in the
plant coupled with stand-alone MSF, MED and RO; and a combined cycle previous cases. In all cases the freshwater production considered is the
power plant with MSF-RO hybrid or MED-RO hybrid. Among the same. The thermodynamic analysis comprises simulations of the
different plant configurations, the combined cycle power plant with integrated power and desalination facility and of the solar field required
MED-RO hybrid showed the best fuel savings. Other authors have in each configuration.
focused on thermal analysis. A thermal analysis of a combined
desalination-power generation plant with salt recovery was presented
by Madani [19]. The power plant was based on a regenerative-reheat 2. Methodology
thermodynamics cycle using seawater as the working fluid and
superheated steam as the heat transfer medium in multi-stage direct The CSP plant has been chosen based on existing commercial plants,
contact evaporators. The results showed a thermal efficiency of 41.7% it consists of a large field of single-axis parabolic-trough solar collectors
and a fresh water recovery of 94.8%. A study of the energy, exergy and (LS3 type) aligned on a north–south orientation and a thermal storage
performance of integrated power and water systems that use steam tank to provide additional operation when solar radiation is not
injected and evaporative gas turbines to produce power and a MED-TVC available. The collectors track the sun from east to west during the
to produce fresh water was carried out by Wang and Lior [20,21]. They day to ensure it is continuously focused on the linear receiver. The net
concluded that in the case of the combined system that uses a steam power of the CSP plant has been considered in all configurations to be
injected gas turbine, the power generation increased and the water 50 MWe, which is the normal size of a commercial parabolic-trough CSP
production decreased the higher the pressure ratio was. The opposite plant [30]. The power cycle is based on the Reheat Rankine cycle, and a
was obtained for the case of the system with an evaporative gas turbine. thermal storage has been considered for extending the operation to 24 h
Both systems achieved a distinct water production rate, in the first case at design day. The design day has been set in mid-June to guarantee that
by recovering the stack gas energy, and in the second case by using a the solar field is not over-dimensioned and therefore is used always at
direct-contact saline water–gas to recover the stack heat. The full capacity. The operation parameters have been chosen based on
connection of the power generation with the RO process has been also those of an existing commercial plant (SEGS IX Solar Power Plant in
evaluated from a thermodynamic point of view. A combination of a Harper Lake, California [31]). As in all commercial parabolic-trough solar
reverse osmosis unit to produce fresh water and a steam power plant to plants, the system operates with thermal oil that is heated as it circulates
generate electricity was analyzed with different systems [22]. The through the absorber tubes of the collectors. Solar energy is thus turned
results showed that mechanical coupling between the RO and the power into thermal energy in the form of sensible heat of the oil, and stored
plant (the latter providing mechanical energy to the pumps of the RO within the thermal storage tank. The inlet and outlet oil temperatures in
system) had more power available for electricity generation while the the field are 295 °C and 390 °C, respectively.
coupling both mechanical and thermal (part of the heat rejected by the The size of the desalination plant has been chosen based on a MED
condenser of the power plant being transferred to the seawater) commercial plant supplied in 2005 by IDE Technologies Ltd. (Israel) to
produced more fresh water. Reliance Industries Ltd. (India). The plant has a production of
Focusing more on the CSP + D concept which is the subject of this 14,400 m 3/day and a 24-h operation has been considered.
paper, not many works have been done. A review of combined solar The integration of MED facilities into CSP plants allows to reduce or
power and desalination plants for the Mediterranean region was carried replace the conventional cooling unit of the steam cycle compared to the
out by Trieb et al. [23]. The paper presented the advantages of these case of a conventional CSP plant connected to a RO system. MED plants
cogeneration plants in terms of economic development and environ- can operate at low-temperature (LT-MED) or with an increased
mental impact in countries of the Southern Mediterranean which have efficiency by using thermal vapor compression driven by high
vast resources of solar energy and land. Moreover, different configura- temperature steam (TVC-MED). The TVC-MED can be combined with
tions for combined electricity and fresh water production by an IPDP in the CSP plant by using high temperature steam extracted from the
the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have been proposed [24]. The turbine or directly from the steam obtained from the solar field (thus
 P. Palenzuela et al. / Desalination 281 (2011) 379–387 381

decoupled from the power cycle). Therefore, the proposed configura- extracted steam is reheated to enter a LP turbine at 371 °C and 17 bars,
tions for this study are: where it expands to 50 °C producing power. In the steam ejector, the live
steam is mixed with saturated vapor extracted from an intermediate
• LT-MED unit coupled with the CSP plant (configuration 1). effect of the TVC-MED plant at a temperature of 50 °C. The resulting
• TVC-MED unit coupled with the CSP plant (configuration 2). compressed vapor from the ejector is injected into the first effect of the
• Independent TVC-MED and CSP plant (configuration 3). TVC-MED plant at 70 °C to feed the thermal distillation process. Finally,
• RO unit connected to the CSP plant (configuration 4). the saturated liquid from the condenser is mixed with the saturated
liquid from the TVC-MED unit and the mixture is pumped into the
2.1. Configuration 1 power conversion system.

A process flow diagram for this configuration is shown in Fig. 1. The 2.3. Configuration 3
thermal energy from the solar field is exploited by a power conversion
system consisting of a pre-heater, an evaporator and a superheater. The This configuration (see process flow diagram in Fig. 3) is similar to
resulting steam at a temperature of 371 °C and a pressure of 104 bars is the previous one but with the difference that the TVC-MED unit is
sent to a high pressure (HP) turbine where after suffering an expansion decoupled from the power cycle. This means that the steam ejector is
process is extracted at a pressure of 17 bars in order to reheat it. The driven by live steam produced from the solar field thermal energy in an
reheated steam is routed to a low-pressure (LP) turbine at 371 °C and additional power conversion system (at 204.3 °C and 17 bars) instead of
17 bars. In this turbine an intermediate extraction of steam at 70 °C extracted from the turbine. The rest of the process is the same as in the
takes place to feed a LT-MED plant after a further reheating process to previous configuration.
obtain saturated steam without increasing the temperature. The
remaining steam in the turbine expands to 50 °C, producing power. 2.4. Configuration 4
Then, it is condensed in a conventional condenser and mixed with the
saturated liquid stream from the first effect of the LT-MED unit. The A process flow diagram for this configuration is shown in Fig. 4. In
mixture is pumped back into the power conversion system. this layout, as in previous configurations, the power is generated by
the same process as in a conventional CSP plant. However, in this
2.2. Configuration 2 configuration the electrical output is maximized because there are not
extractions which penalize the power production. The RO plant is
In Fig. 2 a process flow diagram is shown for this configuration. driven by the power output from the CSP plant.
Steam is produced from the solar field thermal energy at the same
pressure and temperature as in the previous case. As before, steam 2.5. Simulations
expands trough a HP turbine to a pressure of 17 bars. However, a small
fraction of this steam is now used as live steam in a steam ejector after The thermodynamic analysis of the four different configurations has
reheating to achieve saturation conditions. The remaining part of the been carried out by the assessment of the net output thermal capacity

Fig. 1. Diagram of configuration 1: LT-MED coupled with a CSP plant.

382 P. Palenzuela et al. / Desalination 281 (2011) 379–387

Fig. 2. Diagram of configuration 2: TVC-MED coupled with a CSP plant.

(which is the thermal power to be provided by the solar field) and the considered assessing the entrainment ratio, which is defined as the ratio
net power cycle efficiency. This assessment has been performed by a of the flow rates of the motive steam qms and the entrained vapor qe:
computer model developed with Engineering Equation Solver (EES). A
set of nonlinear, algebraic equations is generated to characterize the qms
Ra = : ð3Þ
thermodynamic cycle in each case. All the components associated with qe
the power cycle (pump, reheater, heat exchanger, condenser and
turbine) are analyzed by steady-flow energy equations. The steam flow rate needed by the MED desalination plants has
In the turbines and pumps, actual expansion and compression been calculated by:
processes, respectively, have been considered. An isentropic efficiency
of 85% has been considered for all. The actual steam enthalpy at the FWF × ρ
qsteam = ð4Þ
outlet of the high pressure and low pressure turbines of all the GOR
configurations proposed has been calculated through:
where FWF is the fresh water production in m 3/day, ρ is the fresh water
h −houlet density in kg/m 3 (at 35 °C and 1 bar) and GOR is Gained Output Ratio,
ηst = inlet ð1Þ
hinlet −houtlet;i which is defined as the mass ratio between the distillate produced and
the steam supplied to the system. A fresh water production of
where ηst is the isentropic efficiency, hinlet is the enthalpy of the steam 14,400 m 3/day has been taken into account. The GOR has been assumed
which enters the turbine, houtlet is the actual enthalpy at the outlet of to be 9.8 in LT-MED and 11.8 in TVC-MED [33].
the turbine and houtlet,i is the ideal enthalpy of the steam which leaves Once the cycle is simulated, the evaluation of the thermodynamic
the turbine. In configuration 1, the enthalpy of the extracted steam efficiency of the cycle has been done by analyzing the net power cycle
has been calculated with the assumption of linear condition line of h-s efficiency, which can be calculated as follows:
between the inlet and the outlet of the turbine:
Pnet;cycle
ηcycle = ð5Þ
hm −houtlet s −s NOTC
= m outlet ð2Þ
hinlet −houtlet sinlet −soutlet
where NOTC is the net output thermal capacity and Pnet,cycle is the net
where hm and sm are the enthalpy and the entropy at the point where power cycle production.
the steam extraction has been done. The net output thermal capacity is given by:
To calculate the steam ejector flow rates (both live steam and
entrained vapor flow rates) a semi-empirical model [32] has been NOTC = Ppcs + PRH ð6Þ
 P. Palenzuela et al. / Desalination 281 (2011) 379–387 383

Fig. 3. Diagram of configuration 3: independent TVC-MED plant and CSP plant.

where Ppcs and PRH are the power required by the power conversion Finally, considering the net output thermal capacity calculated
system and the reheaters of the cycle, respectively. The net power before, the solar field size has been determined by a computer model
cycle production is calculated as the gross turbine output (Pturb) minus developed in MATLAB. The parabolic trough solar field is based on the
the power required by the pumps (Ppumps): LS-3 type collector. A model is used for this collector based on the
equations given in Appendix A [35–37]. The following parameters and
Pnet;cycle = Pturb − Ppumps : ð7Þ assumptions have been taken into account in the simulations:
• North–South orientation.
In all case studies, the analysis has been carried out considering a
• Plant location: Longitude 1.7899° W; Latitude 37.1006° N.
net power production of the plant (Pnet) of 50 MW. The net power
• Design point: 15th of June.
production of the plant is the net power production of the cycle minus
• Thermal storage capacity for 24-h solar operation at design day
the power required by the desalination plant (Pdesal):
(fossil backup when the solar radiation is not available).
Pnet = Pturb −Ppumps −Pdesal : ð8Þ • The net output thermal capacity calculated before.
• Inlet temperature to the field: 295 °C.
• Outlet temperature from the field: 390 °C.
For the calculation of the power required by the desalination plant,
a specific electric consumption of 1.5 kWh/m 3 has been assumed in The simulations were carried out for Palomares, in the province of
the case of the MED plant and 4 kWh/m 3 in the case of RO [34]. Almería in SE Spain. With about 1990 kWh/m 2 yr DNI radiation, this
384 P. Palenzuela et al. / Desalination 281 (2011) 379–387

Fig. 4. Diagram of configuration 4: RO connected to a CSP plant.

site represents a good location for CSP plants in the Mediterranean the ejector, and the remaining 43.47 kg/s enter the LP turbine and are
area. Radiation and ambient temperature data have been taken from a later sent to the condenser. The larger the amount of steam that reaches
meteorological year type data set generated with the software PVSYST the condenser is, the larger the cooling requirements of the plant are.
V4.35 (monthly horizontal global irradiance data, room temperature This affects the internal water and energy consumption of the plant. In
and wind velocity obtained with the Meteonorm software [38]). The this case, configuration 1 has less cooling requirements than the rest. In
oil type is Monsanto VP-1 (its properties are determined using configurations 3 and 4 all the steam produced through the power
Monsanto software). conversion system of the power cycle must be condensed, since no
extraction is done in the turbine. In the latter case, the flow of steam is
3. Results slightly higher than in the former, since more power needs to be
produced in the turbine for obtaining the same net power production
The results obtained from the simulation of each configuration are while taking into account the consumption of the RO plant.
shown in the corresponding process flow diagrams (Figs. 1–4). In each Table 1 presents a summary of the net output thermal capacity
figure, values of the state points of the thermodynamic cycle values obtained for each configuration and the required solar field
(temperature, pressure, enthalpy and entropy) and the resulting design. It also shows the net efficiency of the power cycle for each case
steam flow rates of each component of the cycle are shown. In the and the steam mass flow rate that is taken to the condenser of the power
first configuration (Fig. 1), the HP turbine requires 49.18 kg/s of steam, cycle. On one hand, it can be observed from the comparison between the
16.91 kg/s is extracted from the LP turbine to feed the MED plant, so only three configurations involving MED units that option 1 (LT-MED
32.28 kg/s has to be condensed in the condenser. In configuration 2 coupled with the CSP plant) has the highest net power cycle efficiency
(Fig. 2) more steam is generated and used in the HP turbine (57.51 kg/s). of the three, because it requires the lowest net output thermal capacity
This means that a larger solar field is required in order to generate that to be provided by the solar field and therefore the smallest solar field.
amount of steam. Of that quantity, 14.04 kg/s are used as live steam in The coupling of a TVC-MED with a CSP plant (configuration 2) leads to a

Table 1
Results of the thermodynamic simulation for the different configurations. Net output thermal capacity, number of rows, collectors, and aperture area required for the field, net power
cycle efficiency and steam mass flow rate to be condensed are shown. Estimated levelized electricity and water costs are also given.

Configuration Net output Number Number of Aperture area of Net power cycle Steam mass flow LEC LWC
thermal capacity of rows collectors solar field efficiency rate through (€/kWh) (€/m3)
(MWth) (m2) (%) condenser
(kg/s)

1 162 537 1074 585330 31.50 32.3 0.252 1.932

2 182 606 1212 660540 28.0 43.5 ___ ___
3 188 626 1252 682340 26.61 46.6 ___ ___
4 160 532 1064 579880 32.73 48.8 0.251 1.872
 P. Palenzuela et al. / Desalination 281 (2011) 379–387 385

reduction of the net output thermal capacity with respect to a system These results are broadly applicable for the Mediterranean area,
composed of two independent plants (configuration 3), roughly a 3% where the salinity and temperature of the seawater allow a moderate
decrease in the aperture area. specific electrical consumption of the RO desalination. In regions
On the other hand, the largest net power cycle efficiency corresponds where the specific electrical consumption of the RO increases much in
to option 4, which is the RO system connected to a CSP plant. This is comparison to the MED plant (i.e., the Persian Gulf), the results may
explained by the extraction of steam from the turbine in configurations be different.
1 and 2, which penalizes the power production. This decrease of
efficiency is smaller in configuration 1, since the steam extracted from
the turbine has a lower exergy. In the case of configuration 3, the Nomenclature
additional solar power required for generating steam for the TVC Aabs absorber tube area (m 2)
penalizes even more the net power cycle efficiency. Ac aperture area (m 2)
An economic evaluation has been made by estimating the levelized Cp specific heat capacity (kJ/kg°C)
electricity cost (LEC) and the levelized water cost (LWC) for the most D absorber diameter (m)
efficient configurations (LT-MED coupled with a CSP plant and RO Fe fouling factor
connected to a CSP plant) [39]. Both are shown in Table 1 based on the FWF fresh water flow rate (m 3/day)
scarce available data [40]. As it can be observed, the cost of electricity is GOR Gain Output Ratio
practically the same but the cost of water is slightly higher (about 3%) for
hinlet enthalpy of the steam which enters the turbine (kJ/kg)
the former due to the higher investment costs of the MED desalination
hm enthalpy at the point where the steam extraction is done
plant compared to the RO unit.
(kJ/kg)
Despite the higher thermodynamic efficiency and better economic
houtlet actual enthalpy at the outlet of the turbine (kJ/kg)
results of the CSP+ RO, the differences with configuration 1 are not that
large. Also, it is important to remark that in both cases which integrate houtlet,i ideal enthalpy of the steam which leaves the turbine (kJ/kg)
MED systems in a CSP plant (configurations 1 and 2) the power plant I direct solar radiation (W/m 2)
cooling requirements are lower, especially in configuration with LT- ID inside diameter (m)
MED (about 40% less than in the CSP + RO case). Another important K incidence angle modifier
consideration is the fact that RO desalination has higher technical L longitude of the absorber (m)
requirements than MED, which does not require sophisticated LT-MED low temperature MED
pretreatment of seawater and therefore needs less maintenance [34]. MENA Middle East and North Africa
Furthermore, in many regions of the world, such as the Persian Gulf, the MWth megawatts of thermal energy
seawater properties are not optimal for the use of RO as desalination MWe megawatts of electrical energy
process. Those inconveniences might weigh more than the slight MED multi-effect distillation
reduction in efficiency of the configuration with LT-MED. MSF multi-stage flash
NOTC net output thermal capacity (MW)
Pnet net power production (MW)
4. Conclusions
Pnet,cycle net power cycle production (MW)
RO reverse osmosis
Simple simulations have been developed for different configura-
qe entrained vapor flow rate (kg/s)
tions of associating MED and RO desalination units with solar power
plants composed of parabolic-trough collectors, in order to charac- qm oil mass flow rate (kg/s)
terize the thermodynamic cycle and determine the solar field size qms motive steam flow rate (kg/s)
needed to produce 14,400 m 3/day fresh water and 50 MWe power. qsteam feeding steam flow rate to the desalination plant (kg/s)
The combination of a RO and a CSP plant has a better cycle efficiency Re Reynolds number
than the layouts with MED units, although it involves more energy S transversal section of the absorber tube (m 2)
losses to the ambient during the cooling process of the power cycle. sm entropy at the point where the steam extraction is done
Moreover, the difference is not too large (less than 2% with respect to the (kJ/kg°C)
best combination with MED) so considering other factors like Tabs absorber temperature (°C)
environmental reasons and possible limitations of the use of RO, the Tin oil inlet temperature collector (°C)
combination of a MED plant with a CSP plant cannot be completely ruled Troom room temperature (°C)
out. Tout oil outlet temperature collector (°C)
The integration of a TVC-MED plant into a CSP plant is more TVC-MED thermal vapor compression MED
competitive than both plants independently. The coupling is more UL global heat loss coefficient (W/(m 2·°C))
efficient thermodynamically than the decoupling, and also more V oil rate inside the absorber tube (m/s)
economic since it requires a smaller solar field for the same power
ρ fresh water density (kg/m 3)
and water production.
ρo oil density (kg/m 3)
The integration of a LT-MED plant into a CSP plant is more efficient
μo oil dynamic viscosity (kg/m·s)
from a thermodynamic and economic point of view than the integration
ηst isentropic efficiency of the turbine
of a TVC-MED. However, for the TVC-MED the GOR is higher since less
thermal energy is required for the same freshwater production (part of ηopt,0° optical peak efficiency
the steam generated in one of the effects of the MED plant is recovered). φ incidence angle
In addition, the capital cost of the TVC-MED is lower, as steam is
extracted from an MED effect as entrained vapor to the ejector and
therefore the condenser of the desalination plant is smaller or can even
be removed in the case that saturated steam is extracted from the last Acknowledgments
effect. Therefore, TVC-MED could be an alternative for the integration
with CSP plants if further configurations are designed to minimize the This work was supported by a pre-doctoral research grant from the
decrease in the thermodynamic efficiency of the power cycle. University of Almería.
386 P. Palenzuela et al. / Desalination 281 (2011) 379–387

Table 2 where S (m 2) is the transversal section of the absorber tube and V

Dimensions and characteristics of the parabolic trough LS-3 type collector. (m/s) the oil velocity inside the absorber tube, calculated by
Item Value choosing a Reynolds number which guarantees a great heat transfer
inside the absorber tube in the regime of turbulent flow. For the LS3
Ac: aperture area 545 m2
L: longitude of the absorber 99 m collectors, Re = 3 × 10 5 is considered, so that V can be assessed from
D: diameter of the absorber 70 mm the expression:
ID: inside diameter of the absorber 65 mm
ηopt,0°: optical peak efficiency 0.75
V·ID·ρo
Re =
μo
Appendix A
where ρo (kg/m3) is the oil density and μo (kg/m·s) the oil dynamic
The solar field is based on the parabolic trough LS-3 type collector viscosity, determined by the Monsanto software taking a mean
(see Table 2). In order to carry out the simulations of the parabolic temperature between the oil inlet and outlet temperature in the solar
trough collectors solar field, which provide the number of collectors field.
per row, the number of rows and finally the aperture area, the
following equations have been used to develop the computer model. References
The thermal power supplied by a LS3 collector taking into account
the set design conditions is given by: [1] The OECD Environmental Outlook to 2030, Organisation for Economic Co-
operation and Development, Paris, France, 2008.
[2] Energy Demands on Water Resources: Report to Congress on the Interdepen-
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