Compressed Air Energy Storage Driven by Wind Power Plant for Water Desalination Through Reverse Osmosis Process

The need for an increase in the freshwater has led to water desalination technologies and its advancements. The expenses arise for the reverse osmosis (RO) desalination system for all the energy consumption parties has led to the implementation of RO membranes. The renewable energy sources provide a non-combustible source due to depleting conventional energy sources. In this work wind power integrated with RO systems for providing clean water by utilizing sustainable energy resource with a compressed air energy storage is proposed. This investigates the accomplishment of compressed air energy storage through an RO membrane connected to pressure vessel based on solution diffusion concept. Here the energy storage will act as a buffer due to variation in the wind velocity. The performance is validated by varying: wind velocity, storage tank volume, and RO elements, pressure inside the tank and pressure limits. The compressed air energy storage is found to provide better water production and water quality compared with conventional RO system connected with wind alone. By maintaining initial pressure in the tank and lower pressure limit the salt rejection was achieved at 98.5%. This shows the effectiveness of compressed air energy storage in combination with wind energy conversion which is better suited for water desalination process with RO.