Renewable Energy Powered Membrane Technology: Electrical Energy Storage Options for a Photovoltaic-Powered Brackish Water Desalination System

The potential for lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries and supercapacitors (SCs) to overcome long-term (one day) short-term (a few minutes) solar irradiance fluctuations with high-temporal-resolution s) on a photovoltaic-powered reverse osmosis membrane (PV-membrane) system was investigated. Experiments were conducted using synthetic brackish water (5-g/L sodium chloride) varied battery capacities (100, 70, 50, 40, 30 20 Ah) evaluate the effect of decreasing energy storage capacities. A comparison made between SCs determine performance “partly cloudyday”. With fully charged batteries, clean drinking produced at an average specific consumption (SEC) 4 kWh/m3. daily production improved from 663 L 767 (16% increase) electrical conductivity decreased 310 µS/cm 274 μS/cm (12% improvement), compared battery-less system. Enhanced occurred when initial capacity >50 Ah. On “sunny” “very cloudy” day increased by 15% 80%, while quality 18% 21%, respectively. enabled 9% increase in 13% improvement SEC cloudy day” reference (without SCs).