Triple-renewable energy system for electricity production and water desalination

This work presents a novel triple-renewable energy system (TRES) that is based on integrating the photovoltaic panels (PVPs), conventional solar chimney (CSC), and cooling tower (CT) in one structure. The ultimate objective of the proposed TRES system is to produce electrical power (P(elc)), desalinated water (D(w)), and if required cooling utilities. The components of the system include a chimney tower, collector, base, PVPs, water pool, bi-directional turbine, and water sprinklers. The TRES system can be operated as CSC during the daytime and CT at night providing 24-h operation. The PVPs were integrated within the structure to increase the P(elc) production and enhance the process performance by heating the air inside the system. The TRES structure increased the efficiency to 0.860% in comparison with the CSC (0.313%). The annual P(elc) production from the TRES system was found to be 792 MWh compared with only 380 MWh generated by the CSC achieving 2.1 folds overall improvement. The CSC-PV and CT contributed to 47% (494 MWh) and 24% (253 MWh) of the P(elc) production, respectively. The annual D(w) production was found to be 1.2-fold higher (163,142 tons) higher than the CSC (139,443 tons). The newly developed TRES system offers a great potential to produce P(elc) and D(w) and save fossil fuel consumption while reducing the emissions of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) to the atmosphere. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11356-022-22547-2.