Assessment of a concentrating solar power plant coupled to a multi-effect distillation with an air-cooled condenser

This study presents a performance analysis of a Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plant coupled to a Multi-Effect Distillation (MEL)) unit with an Air-Cooled Condenser (ACC) as the MED last condenser (configuration named as MED-ACC) to evaluate the advantage of this integration in comparison to the typical once-through condenser (configuration named as MED-OTC). The analysis has been performed for Cnicero, Chile, which is located 100 km far from the coast and 1000 m above sea level. Thus, a seawater pumping system and energy recovery of the brine disposal are considered. The design of the MED-ACC plant has been carried out in terms of the ACC temperature limitations, and the simulation of both configurations has been performed on an hourly basis. Results obtained in the design show that configuration MED-ACC requires a lower number of effects than the MED-OTC configuration, which reduces the capacity and efficiency of the MED plant. A significant advantage of the former configuration is the reduction in the MED electric consumption with respect that of the latter configuration. Regarding annual performance results, it was found that the net electric output of the MED-ACC plant was 14% higher than the MED-OTC plant due to the seawater pumping consumption reduction, while the water production was 43% lower, despite the water capacity factor of both configurations remained similar.