Numerical and Experimental Investigation on Integrated Solar Chimney for Seawater Desalination System in Egypt

Energy and water are the core of sustainable development pathway for any remote community. Moreover, clean energy powered water desalination is essential for climate resilience. Combination of solar chimney power plant with seawater desalination system is proposed to overcome both clean energy and clean water resource challenges for remote areas. In this work, a novel solar-powered hybrid generator of power and sea water desalination is proposed, where solar power system has been combined with liquid desiccant system to simultaneously produce power and fresh water. Numerical and experimental investigation on the proposed system is conducted to prove the concept. It was concluded that using this technology and under daily averages of solar irradiance of 500 W/m2 and atmospheric air humidity ratio of 0.019 (kg water vapour/kg dry air), a combination of power generation capacity higher than 50 MW could economically produce power and fresh water. Furthermore, an average of 5.6 l/h of fresh water could be produced per 1 kg/s of Solar Chimney Power Plant (SCPP) working air.