LIFE CYCLE COSTING AND PAYBACK PERIOD EVALUATION OF A SOLAR THERMAL DESALINATION SYSTEM

Water is important for life and development. About 1.8 billion people will be living in absolute water scarcity by2025.Non availability of safe drinkable water is the major source of diseases in the different regions of the worldespecially remote rural and coastal areas. About 97% of water on earth is comprised of seawater. Desalination ofsaline water is a prominent approach to handle the problem of water scarcity. Conventional desalination technologiescause economic and environmental problems due to their dependency upon fossil fuels. Solar flash desalinationis one of the best desalination techniques in the developing stages. Solar energy, passive vacuum and recovery oflatent heat of condensation make this system a sustainable option for desalination. In this paper, economic analysisof the solar thermal desalination system of saline water is presented. The unit cost of desalinated water is found tobe US$ 0.0147 per litre. The energy and emission payback (EEP) period for vacuum chamber and solar collectorhas also been presented. The energy payback period of solar collector and vacuum chamber are found to be 1.3years and 1.5 years respectively. The emission payback period of solar collector and vacuum chamber are found tobe 1.8 years and 2.1 years respectively.