Design of a solar powered desalination system for use in South Africa

This paper looks at the feasibility and design of a solar powered desalination system for use in South Africa. Furthermore, a simulation is constructed in order to predict the fresh water output of such a system for a specific location from a meteorological database. The chosen system uses a Multi Effect Distillation (MED) unit coupled with a flat plate solar collector to deliver 200 litres of fresh water per day from a collector area of 10.42 m. Experimental verification of the solar collector is undertaken and compared to the Meteonorm data used in the simulation.