Wind powered water desalination

Renewable energy, and more specifically, wind energy powered desalination, has been going through an upwards trend, especially during the last decade. Still, there is a domain that has not been much researched [1]; hence, this paper tries to address wind powered independent desalination systems. With its lower energy consumption and portability, Reverse Osmosis (RO) method has been chosen as the desalination technology that will be integrated with wind energy. In this work a MATLAB simulation is used to find out the effects of fluctuating wind energy on a system that is designed to operate under steady conditions. The results show that varying electrical power leads to extreme fluctuation in feed water pressure, beyond the operational range of the RO membranes. Still, this does not draw a cross on the wind and desalination combo; in fact, several methods exist to diminish the pressure variation, including wind turbine de-rating, or use of pressure stabilizers.