Seawater desalination as renewable energy storage for wind energy production

For renewable energy systems, storage has always been a setback. To handle the storage issue of the wind energy generated in Sarıtepe Campus, a reverse osmosis (RO) seawater desalination system is proposed. Using the power data collection systems in the campus, energy data is analyzed. Based on this analysis, the estimation for short-term and long-term energy budget is conducted. Forecast power is used as an input to the desalination plant to change the operating power of the system based on the surplus power of the campus. To increase the system feasibility, supportive systems including grid connection, battery storage and photovoltaic (PV) panels are combined with the wind energy converter (WEC) and the desalination system. Simulation test cases are designed in terms of hardware. Different algorithms for the test case systems are developed to create subcases in terms of software. By combining hardware and software, alternatives, multiple test cases are formed and simulations are conducted for each case. Based on simulation results, the best performing case stores 383 MWh of energy that was produced by the WEC and PV annually. This system is calculated to have an internal return rate (IRR) of 22% with a payback period of 4.3 years.