thermo-economic investigation of integrating a solar brine concentrator into a gas turbine-driven power plant

The purpose of the present research is to propose an appropriate energy source for the continuous operation of a solar brine concentrator, mainly when solar energy is inaccessible. for this purpose, a highly efficient water and power cogeneration process is proposed by incorporating a solar energy-driven brine concentrator into a gas turbine-based power plant. in this regard, a part of the steam from the power plant is diverted towards the brine concentrator to ensure consistent steam availability for supporting the desalination process when sunlight is inaccessible. another scenario (as the second scenario) was explored to assess the effectiveness of the proposed setup. this scenario involved a solar field and a thermal energy storage system, providing steam independently for the desalination process, without being integrated with the power plant. the proposed hybrid configuration is projected to serve as a promising energy source in the forthcoming desalination industry. the evaluation included a seasonal analysis based on the weather conditions of bandar abbas city. the findings revealed that the summer design condition in the proposed configuration resulted in the lowest investment payback and the highest internal rate of return. in this respect, despite a 7.8% reduction in annual total electricity output compared to the second scenario, the freshwater output approximately doubled. moreover, the internal rate of return value experienced a more than 41% increase, and the payback period decreased by 30%.