Solar water purification based on Reverse Osmosis designed and optimized for off-grid configuration

News Release | January 20th, 2015 — MegaCell Engineering, the leading Italian Company focused on Smart Energy System and owned by Mega Group, has launched the recently patented SSD (Solar Smart Solar Desalination) system these days at WFES, as a world-brand new product for solar water purification based on Reverse Osmoses (RO).

SSD has been specially designed and optimized for off-grid configuration, using Bi-facial High-efficiency Photovoltaic Modules produced by MegaCell engineered with BISoN technology and installed on single-axis tracker with specific design: the best option especially for desert-areas with with dust and sand deposition on the PV module surfaces.

The PV Power Generation is combined with Genset and small UPS for back–up purpose only, in order to guarantee the delivery of purified water 24/7, and is adapted to different power requirements of Desalination Process.

This optimization releases a patent pending, innovative and cost-effective water purification system, maximizing the use of solar energy to produce directly purified water and minimizing the storage of electricity in the batteries and the fuel consumption at the Genset.

With SSD the energy delivered to the desalination plant site is reduced of more than 87%, from 2,98 kWhe/m3 to 0,37 kWhe/m3, and the total unit cost of water is reduced of more than 58% compared with a standard RO system.

One of the winning points is the possibility to store water processed instead of energy into batteries. In the smart RO, the sun directly goes in the desalination process without storage in batteries. The big tank of desalted water has the double scope to optimize the renewable energy generation process and to guarantee the water availability. The role of the back-up system is not to store energy, but to optimize all the energy not used by the Smart Reverse Osmosis (RO).

In case of stand-alone configuration (off-grid system), the payback period is no more than 3-4 years.
The SSD system has been dimensioned for 48 m3/h of potable water: the scale up is modular with the formula n x 48 m3/h. The modularity is applied in quantity of potable water but also in quality of water produced (from UltraPure Water to desalinated water but not potable e.g. for agriculture) or treated (level of salt concentration).

The SSD system uses the innovative BiSoN Bi-facial PV Modules, made with 60 BiSoN Bi-facial Hi-efficiency N-type solar cells produced by MegaCell e developed with ISC Konstanz. Considering 30% rear side module contribution, the total efficiency is 25,5% and the power is 350 Wp equivalent.