Design and optimization of desalination plant with the use of renewable energy sources and energy storage

The desalination of sea water represents a possible solution to the growing problem of freshwater scarcity, which currently affects even places that did not have this problem in the past. Of particular interest are the systems that are powered by renewable energy sources, the most promising of which are reverse osmosis systems powered by electricity produced by photovoltaic or wind farms and battery. The main objective of this thesis is to design a reverse osmosis system powered by wind and solar energy that not only produces desalinated water but also storage the energy in the battery. The plant model was created using MATLAB Simulink calculation software, which allowed the plant to be simulated for a complete year and a technical and economic evaluation to be performed. The sizes of the system components were then optimized, with the goal of decreasing the cost of water desalination or maximizing the NPV (net present value) of the investment and use of renewable energy.