Seasonal thermo-enviro-economic performance analyses of concentrated PV/T integrated with humidification-dehumidification water desalination system

Concentrated solar photovoltaic thermal offers a great opportunity for water desalination by applying some thermally driven techniques. Humidification–dehumidification water desalination is appropriate for moderate installations and runs on low temperatures matching the attainable output of low concentrated photovoltaic thermal systems. So, in this paper, thermo-enviro-economic performance analyses of an integrated system consisting of compound parabolic collectors partially covered with photovoltaic cells powering humidification dehumidification water desalination system is theoretically introduced. The system performance is conducted at a seasonal scale using MATLAB throughout the whole year under the weather of New Borg El-Arab city-Alexandria-Egypt. The results indicate that raising the flow rate of the working fluid of the system increases the desalination output, reduces the PV cell temperature, and enhances PV efficiency. At a fluid flow rate of 0.02 kg/s suitable for PV safety temperature, the cell maximum and minimum temperature are 79 and 42.5 °C, maximum and output power is 6 and 3.8 kW, and maximum and minimum efficiency is 17.2 and 14.2 % respectively. The output water temperature is 73 and 36.9 °C in summer and winter, respectively. The desalination system produces maximally 4.7, 6.2, and 3.8 L/h at water to air mass flow rate ratios of 1.5, 2, and 3, respectively. The maximum achieved average monthly desalination system gain output ratio is 3.15 with an overall system efficiency of 41 %. The average annual system thermal energy and exergy yield is approximately 176 and 0.2 kWh, respectively. The annual freshwater cost is $0.0351/Liter. The system mitigates an annual average of 7.2 tons of CO2 emissions.