Design of a reverse electrodialysis plant for salinity gradient energy extraction in a coastal wastewater treatment plant
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Sampedro Pelayo, Tamara; Tristán Teja, Carolina; Gómez Coma, Lucía; Fallanza Torices, Marcos; Ortiz Uribe, Inmaculada; Ibáñez Mendizábal, RaquelFecha
2023-05-24Derechos
© 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license.
Publicado en
Membranes, 2023, 13(6), 546
Editorial
MDPI
Palabras clave
Reverse electrodialysis
Energy recovery
Water reclamation
Techno-economic assessment
Levelized Cost of Energy
Resumen/Abstract
The chemical potential difference at the discharge points of coastal Wastewater Treatment Plants (WWTPs) uncovers the opportunity to harness renewable salinity gradient energy (SGE). This work performs an upscaling assessment of reverse electrodialysis (RED) for SGE harvesting of two selected WWTPs located in Europe, quantified in terms of net present value (NPV). For that purpose, a design tool based on an optimization model formulated as a Generalized Disjunctive Program previously developed by the research group has been applied. The industrial scale-up of SGE-RED has already proven to be technically and economically feasible in the Ierapetra medium-sized plant (Greece), mainly due to a greater volumetric flow and a warmer temperature. At the current price of electricity in Greece and the up-to-date market cost of membranes of 10 EUR/m2, the NPV of an optimized RED plant in Ierapetra would amount to EUR117 thousand operating with 30 RUs in winter and EUR 157 thousand for 32 RUs in summer, harnessing 10.43 kW and 11.96 kW of SGE for the winter and summer seasons, respectively. However, in the Comillas facility (Spain), this could be cost-competitive with conventional alternatives, namely coal or nuclear power, under certain conditions such as lower capital expenses due to affordable membrane commercialization (4 EUR/m2). Bringing the membrane price down to 4 EUR/m2 would place the SGE-RED´s Levelized Cost of Energy in the range of 83 EUR/MWh to 106 EUR/MWh, similar to renewable sources such as solar PV residential rooftops.
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