Water. Desalination + reuse
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/1019735
SKYTROUGH VACUUM MEMBRANE: AN EXTREME LOW-COST SOLAR-THERMAL COLLECTOR FOR DESALINATION • Team: Skyfuel • Location: Lakewood, CO • DOE Award Amount: $1,598,814 • Awardee Cost Share: $399,704 • Principal Investigator: Nathan Schuknecht An e cient lightweight parabolic trough solar collector would help bring down the levelised cost of heat from solar-thermal energy, and make desalinated water cheaper. The team from Skyfuel has been working on improv- ing their technology since 2005, focusing on a lighter aluminium space frame with fewer parts, assembly in double-quick time and larger and longer receiver tubes. Now they are using the DoE investment to develop a new membrane-based re ector. An as- sociated heat-transfer uid deliv- ery system with low-temperature thermal energy storage system will be designed and integrated. LOW-COST DISPATCHABLE HEAT FOR SMALL-SCALE SOLAR-THERMAL DESALINATION SYSTEMS • Team: University of California, Merced • Location: Merced, CA • DOE Award Amount: $1,081,793 • Awardee Cost Share: $277,133 • Principal Investigator: Roland Winston External compound parabolic so- lar concentrators have two major advantages for humidi‚ cation- dehumidi‚ cation desalination, in that they are non-tracking and cheap to maintain. The team in Merced, headed by Prof. Roland Winston, are improving the e ciency of their integrated compound parabolic concentra- tors by designing, building and testing a low-cost thermal energy system to reduce the levelised cost of heat to below 1.5c/kWh. The ‚ nal product will be totally portable and feature a novel thermal energy storage system. The team has its eye on supply- ing rural and remote counties in the local Central Valley. SkyFuel will develop a membrane-based parabolic concentrator that is lighter weight and lower cost to provide process heat for desalination systems. The product will be similar to its existing parabolic troughs, using instead a flexible membrane technology, rather than rigid, structural framing. September 2018 Water. desalination + reuse Far Site 33