Technical and Economic Analysis for A MED System and Hybrid MED-RO Desalination in CHP Plant

Effective integration of membrane/thermal desalination and power technology can improve the performance of thermal desalination and reduce the cost of desalted water. In this paper two study cases with different configuration desalination processes are considered and compared. This comparison is performed using THERMOFLEX (R) software. The first case is a 25 MW gas turbine engine that is coupled with a MED_TVC thermal desalination plant and for the second one a hybrid desalination system is coupled with the mentioned gas turbine. For the hybrid process proposed to feed the MED unit with brine discharge of SWRO system. The operation of the hybrid configuration was simulated, the technical and economical results calculated and compared with those that could be achieved by an equivalent MED-TVC system. The main target of this analysis is to improve performance of MED-TVC desalination process by changing its feed water flow pressure, as well as to determine the changes in unit product cost of the desalinated water compared with MED-TVC product cost.