Desalination 137 (2001) 259–265

Economic analysis of wind-powered desalination

L. García-Rodrígueza*, V. Romero-Terneroa, C. Gómez-Camachob
a
Dpto. Física Fundamental y Experimental, Universidad de La Laguna, c/Astrofísico Francisco Sánchez s/n
38204 La Laguna (Tenerife), Canary Islands, Spain
Tel. +34 (922) 318303; Fax +34 (22) 318228; email: mlgarcia@ull.es
b
Dpto. Igeniería Energética y Mecánica de Fluidos, Universidad de Sevilla, ESI,
Camino de los Descubrimientos s/n., 41002 Sevilla, Spain

Received 26 July 2000; accepted 14 August 2000

Abstract
Wind-powered desalination is one of the most promising uses of renewable energies for seawater desalination. The
influence of the main parameters on the levelized cost of fresh water was analyzed: climatic conditions, nominal power
of the wind turbine, salt concentration of seawater or brackish water, design arrangement, operating conditions, plant
capacity, cost of reverse osmosis modules and cost of wind turbines. In addition, the competitiveness of wind power vs.
conventional energy in reverse osmosis plants was studied. Results obtained are useful, not only to quantify the influence
of the parameters studied, but also to system design and to evaluate the economic perspectives of this technology.

Keywords: Economics; Wind-powered desalination

1. Introduction power systems achieved over the last decades

make a promising future of wind-powered RO
Nowadays there are several seawater or
desalination possible. This paper presents an
brackish water desalination plants driven by wind
economic analysis of this technology. The
power [1–6]. The optimized design has been
influence of the main parameters on the levelized
studied by Kiranoudis et al. [7]. In Spain there
cost of fresh water was analyzed: climatic
are two wind-powered reverse osmosis (RO)
conditions, salt concentration of seawater or
systems, one of them in Fuerteventura Island and
brackish water, design arrangement, operating
the other one in the Gran Canaria Island. The
conditions, plant capacity, nominal power of the
technological improvements of RO and wind
wind turbine, cost of RO modules and cost of
wind turbines.
*Corresponding author.

Presented at the conference on Desalination Strategies in South Mediterranean Countries, Cooperation between
Mediterranean Countries of Europe and the Southern Rim of the Mediterranean, sponsored by the European Desalination
Society and Ecole Nationale d’Ingenieurs de Tunis, September 11–13, 2000, Jerba, Tunisia.
0011-9164/01/$– See front matter © 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved
260 L. García-Rodríguez et al. / Desalination 137 (2001) 259–265

2. Wind-powered desalination In this paper we considered three wind-

The RO module may consume either electric
or mechanical power. Then a wind-powered
turbine may drive a RO plant. Normally, electric
power delivered from a wind farm is used;
nevertheless, the direct use of mechanical power
is also possible.
powered turbines, NM600/43, NM600/48 and
NM750/44, manufactured by the NEG-Micon
Danish Co. (see Table 1). The two first have
600 kW of nominal power. The NM600/48 is a
suitable wind turbine for low wind speed due to
its rotor diameter, greater than that of the

Table 1
Wind turbine items

Wind turbine NM600/43 NM600/48 NM750/44

Nominal power, kW 600 600 750
Diameter, m 43 48 44
Cost range, $/kW 900–1200 +10–20% NM600/43 900–1000
Representative cost, $/kW 1050 + 15 % NM600/43 950

Table 2
Wind-powered reverse osmosis plant

Wind-powered RO Range of values Representative values

RO plant:
Plant capacity, m3/d 200–3000 200–3000
Specific energy consumption, kWh/m3 3.5–6.5 5.0
Membrane replacement cost, c$/m3 3–10 6
Investments cost, $/m3/d 2400–1400 1400 $/m3-day
Chemicals, c$/m3 4–0 6
Availability, % 85–95 90
O&M, 200–3000 m3/d, c$/m3 60–20 20
O&M, 3000 m3/d, c$/m3 15–25 20
Conventional energy cost, c$/kWh 6–10 6
Wind energy resources:
Weibull distribution shape parameter 1.5–2.5 2.0
Annual average wind speed at hub height, m/s 5–10 7
Wind farm:
Wind turbine NM600/43,48,750/44 NM600/43
Investment cost, $/kW 900–1200 1050
Availability, % 85–95 90
O&M, c$/kWh 0.5–1.5 1.0
Economical parameters:
Real discount rate, % 0–10 5
Life time, y — 20
Construction time, y — 1
 L. García-Rodríguez et al. / Desalination 137 (2001) 259–265 261

NM600/43. NM750/44 has 750 kW of nominal pump to the RO modules; (4) the properties of
power. With regard to a RO plant, Table 2 shows the membranes.
its main characteristics. • The economic and financial parameters.

3. Levelized cost of fresh water 3.1. Climatic conditions

This section presents a detailed study of the
influence of different parameters on the levelized
cost (LC) of fresh water for a wind-powered RO
plant. The main parameters that influence the
fresh water LC are:
• plant capacity.
• climatic conditions, the characteristic of wind
turbines and the energy requirement of the RO
plant that define the size of the wind farm
required for a given annual production of
fresh water.
• energy requirement of the desalination plant,
which is determined by (1) the salt concen-
tration of the seawater or brackish water
supply; (2) the coupling of the wind-powered
turbine and the RO module, since the RO
plant may consume either electric or mechani-
cal power; (3) the coupling of a recovery
The wind power available in a given place is
defined by the annual average of the wind speed
at the hub height (VM) and the shape parameter
(k). Two different plant capacities, 200 m3/d and
3000 m3/d, were selected to study the influence
of the available wind power on the LC of fresh
water. Fig. 1 shows that the LC goes up as the
VM goes down. In addition, the greater the VM,
the lower the change of LC. If VM is lower than
6 m/s, a raise of 1 m/s of VM results in a 10 c$ of
LC decrease. Nevertheless, if the VM is greater
than 8 m/s, the rate of decrease of the LC is about
2.5 c$·m-1·s. Otherwise, the influence of k on the
LC goes down with VM, having a low effect for
VM greater than 6 m/s. If VM is greater than
8 m/s, the LC slightly decreases with k, and if the
VM is lower than 7 m/s, the LC slightly increases
with k.

Fig. 1. Effect of k and VM on the levelized cost of fresh water. Wind turbine: NW600/43. Plant capacities: (a) 200 m3/d;
(b) 3000 m3/d. Remaining parameters of wind-powered RO are the representative values given in Table 2.
262 L. García-Rodríguez et al. / Desalination 137 (2001) 259–265
3.2. Selection of the wind-powered turbine
With regard to the comparison between
NM600/43, NM600/48 and NM750/44, results
showed that:
• If the NM600/48 and NM750/44 wind
turbines are compared with NM600/43, the
wind speed parameters that make equivalent
the LC of fresh water are not dependent on
the plant capacity.
• Otherwise, if k is greater than 1.5, the LC of
NM600/48 wind turbines is lower than that of
NM600/43 for a VM lower than 7 m/s, 6 m/s
and 5 m/s when NM600/48 costs are,
respectively, 10%, 15% and 20% greater than
NM600/43.
• Alternatively, if k is lower than 2.4, the LC of
NM600/48 wind turbines is lower than that of
NM600/43 for a VM lower than 9.5 m/s,
7.8 m/s and 6.4 m/s when NM600/48 costs are,
respectively, 10%, 15% and 20% greater than
NM600/43.
• NM750/44 results in a LC of fresh water lo-
wer than that of NM600/43 if the VM >8 m/s
Fig. 2. Comparative study of different wind turbines. Symbols LC600/43, LC600/48 and LC750/44 represent the LC of fresh water
of wind turbines NM600/43, NM600/48 and NM750/44, respectively.
for k = 1.5, or VM >10 m/s for k = 2.5.
Fig. 2 gives the most representative figures.
3.3. Design arrangement and operating con-
ditions
The energy requirements of a RO plant not
only depend on the salt concentration of the
saline water supply but also on the status of the
technology. As a practical case, Glueckstern [8]
gave an energy consumption of RO seawater
plants in Israel, 4.5–6 kWh/m3 for current plants
and 3.5–5.0 kWh/m3 in advanced technology
systems.
Different aspects may reduce the LC of fresh
water by reducing the energy requirements as
follows: (1) The future improvement of coupling
RO modules to wind-powered turbines since the
RO plant may use mechanical power directly
instead of electric power; (2) The improvement
of the energy recovery in RO plants; and (3) The
development of membrane technology. Fig. 3
shows the effect of the specific consumption of
the RO plant on the LC of the product.
 L. García-Rodríguez et al. / Desalination 137 (2001) 259–265
Fig. 3. Effect of plant capacity and the specific energy
consumption on the LC of fresh water.
3.4. Future perspectives of the technology
3.4.1. Future perspectives of wind-powered
technology
The influence of possible future decreasing of
the wind farm costs was investigated for 200–
3000 m3/d of plant capacity, k = 2; VM = 7 m/s;
and the real discount rate, 5%. Results show that
in the range of values studied:
• The LC of fresh water increases 4.5 c$/m3 per
1 c$/kWh of increasing the O&M costs.
• The LC of fresh water increases 1.7 c$/m3 as
investment cost of the wind farm increases
100 $/kW.
3.4.2. Future perspectives of RO desalination
technology
The technological improvements of RO
desalination technology mainly depend on mem-
brane development. Any membrane improvement
may result in longer lasting of membranes, less
operation and maintenance, greater availability of
the plant and lower costs of investment and
membrane replacement.
263
Fig. 4. Levelized cost of fresh water. Horizontal and
vertical axes represent plant capacity and availability of
the RO plant, respectively.
The influence of the availability on the LC of
fresh water is given in Fig .4 where the real
discount rate is 5%, and the remaining
parameters are the representative ones given in
Table 2. From Fig. 4 it may be concluded that the
LC of fresh water increases 8.5% and 10% for
200 m3/d and 3000 m3/d plants, respectively,
when the availability decreases from 95% to
85%.
Results showed that the fresh water LC is a
linear function of the costs of membrane replace-
ment and O&M. On the one hand, the LC
decreases 1.1 c$/m3 as the O&M decreases
1 c$/m3. On the other hand, the LC decreases
0.33 c$/m3 as the cost of membrane replacement
decreases 1c$/m3.
3.4.3. Influence of the real discount rate
The influence of the real discount rate on the
competitiveness of wind-powered desalination is
given in Fig. 5. This figure represents the
difference between the LC obtained for a wind-
powered RO plant (LCwe) and a conventional
264 L. García-Rodríguez et al. / Desalination 137 (2001) 259–265

energy driven one (LCce). Results are not

dependent on the plant capacity.
Otherwise, the competitiveness of wind power
against conventional energy in RO desalination
may be represented by the quotient LCwe/LCce.
Fig. 6 shows the influence of perspectives of the
real discount rate and the cost of conventional
energy on this competitiveness.

4. Results
The influence on product levelized cost of the
parameters studied is summarized in Table 3.

Table 3
Influence on levelized cost of product
Fig. 5. Influence of the real discount rate on the
difference of LCwe–LCce for different VMs. The Parameter Effect on
remaining para-meters of wind-powered RO are the the LC
representative ones given in Table 2.
RO plant:
Plant capacity 5
Specific energy consumption 3–4
Availability 3
Membrane replacement costs 2
O&M (without energy 4
consumption)
Wind energy resources:
Average wind speed 4
Weibull distribution shape 2–4
parameter
Wind farm:
Wind farm cost (turbine and O&M) 2–3
Wind turbine model 2–3
Economics:
Real discount rate 4–5

5: very high, 4: high, 3: medium, 2: low, 1: very low.

Fig. 6. Influence of the real discount rate and the cost of
conventional energy on the quotient Lcwe/LCce. The
remaining parameters of wind-powered RO are the
representatives ones given in Table 2.
5. Conclusions
The technological improvements of RO and
wind-powered systems achieved during the last
decades make a promising future possible for
 L. García-Rodríguez et al. / Desalination 137 (2001) 259–265
wind-powered RO desalination since the para-
meter that could change in the future has a high
effect on the LC.
The results obtained are useful, not only to
quantify the influence of the parameters studied,
but also to design systems and to evaluate the
economic perspectives of this technology.
Acknowlegedment
This study was supported financially by the
Canary Autonomous Government and La Laguna
University.
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