Combining Heliostat Solar Energy and Reverse Osmosis: Thermoeconomic Analysis for Power Generation and Freshwater Production

Subject Areas : Hybrid renewable energy systems

Seyyed Masoud Seyyedi ^{1 *} , Seyyed Mostafa Ghadami ²

1 - Department of Mechanical Engineering,Ali. C., Islamic Azad University, Aliabad Katoul ,Iran
2 - Department of Electrical Engineering, Aliabad Katoul Branch, Islamic Azad University, Aliabad Katoul ,Iran,

Received: 2025-06-16 Accepted : 2025-06-24 Published : 2025-09-18

Keywords: Solar energy, Heliostat Reverse Osmosis, Power Generation, Freshwater Production, Thermoeconomic,

Abstract :

The simultaneous production of electricity and fresh water is one of the needs of human society and the topics of interest for designers of energy systems. In the present work, a heliostat solar farm is combined with a reverse osmosis desalination unit to produce electricity and fresh water. Firstly, thermodynamic analysis is performed to calculate thermodynamic properties of each state including mass, temperature, pressure and enthalpy. Then thermoeconomic analysis is performed to calculate the cost of electricity and fresh water. The effects of design variables (pressure ratio of air compressor, the efficiencies of gas turbine and air compressor and number of heliostats), environmental parameters (air temperature and solar direct normal irradiance) and economic parameters (interest rate and economic life of components) on the profit from the sale of system products (electricity and fresh water) are investigated. The results reveals that the maximum values of profit are 582.5, 841.7 and 1093 $/h for number of heliostats  1800, 2200 and 2600, respectively at . Also, the amount of fresh water produced  increases from 166.6   to 194  (16.4% increasing) as  goes up from 750  to 910 . The value of profit ascends from 841.7 $/h to 1310 $/h (55.6% increasing) when interest rate decsends from 12% to 10% for n = 25, too