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This paper investigates the potential and feasibility of an integrating hybrid renewable power generation system with a large-scale reverse osmosis desalination plant to provide electricity, heat, and water for the New Capital International Airport, Egypt. The proposed energy system contains photovoltaic panels, wind turbine, combined heat-power microturbine generator, diesel generator, batteries, converter, thermal load controller, and a boiler. A comprehensive energy-economic-environmental optimization analysis was performed to optimize energy systems in which 16-feasible solutions were evaluated and compared. The results revealed that the optimal system has the least net present and energy costs by 1.54 M$ and 0.089 $/kWh, respectively, and needs only 1.12 years to recover the invested money. Moreover, the proposed system produces emissions of 59.5% less than the base-case. The optimal system has a negligible unmet load ratio since it has a negligible loss of power supply possibility of 0.0993%. The thermal load controller has a significant impact on reducing the net present cost, cost of energy, emissions, and needed batteries by 52%, 56.4%, 36.5%, and 90%, respectively compared to the base-case. The obtained results are expected to attract large investments in clean energy and water desalination because of the government's challenges in such fields. • Energy-economic-environmental optimization is performed for an airport in the new capital of Egypt. • Prominence is set to provide the airport with the daily need for electricity, heat, and water. • The effect of renewables, TLC, and batteries on the optimal system performance is discussed. • The cost of energy of the optimal system is reached to 0.08 $/kWh with a payback period of 1.2 years. • The proposed system generates 59.5% of CO 2 emission less than the traditional diesel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Solar-wind-diesel hybrid system is proposed for a large-scale reverse osmosis desalination plant. • A 3E fuzzy decision-making optimization model is developed for ten distinct energy systems. • Performance of flow batteries and pumped hydro storage technologies are investigated and compared. • Hybrid system with battery option results in better energy, economic, and ecological benefits. • Sensitivity analysis on storage cost show more savings in NPC and COE with pumped hydro than the battery. This paper aims to propose a conceptual design model for sustainable hybrid renewable stand-alone energy system (HRSES) to meet the electricity demand of a large-scale reverse osmosis desalination plant in Baltim, Egypt. The model investigates the feasibility of different HRSES alternatives and develop a fuzzy-based multicriteria decision-making model for meticulously selecting the optimal energy solution. Both zinc-bromine flow battery and turbine-pumped hydro energy storage technologies are integrated independently with wind, solar, and diesel power sources. Firstly, the proposed model uses HOMER software to execute an energy-economic-ecological optimization analysis for studying the practicability and components sizing of nine HRSES alternatives. Second, an integration between Fuzzy-AHP and Fuzzy-VIKOR decision-making methods is executed to choose the best design considering ten performance criteria. In the second stage, the fuzzy environment is engaged to expedite decision-makers to express their ratings in linguistic terms and to achieve more sensible and accurate results. Among ten feasible alternatives, the results reveal that the optimal system consists of 5 × 20-kW wind turbines, 328-kW photovoltaic array, 100-kW diesel generator, 112 batteries and 235-kW converter. This system has the best economic performance among all alternatives with least NPC, COE, and payback-period of $1,048,046, 0.101$/kWh and 1.1 yr, respectively. Besides, it has a treasured share of renewable of 95.55%; hence, it produces a realistic CO 2 of 25,426.46 kg/year. Lastly, the sensitivity analysis illuminates that the future load growth and low-interest rate hurt upcoming investments while the projected reduction in the cost of energy storages has an encouraging influence on financing decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Large-scale reverse osmosis desalination powered by hybrid renewable energy source. • The optimal off-grid power system was photovoltaics/wind/diesel/battery/convertor. • The emitted carbon dioxide of the optimal system outperformed diesel system by 81.5%. • Energy storage systems are required to meet the energy demand during night times. Seawater desalination is a viable source of potable water, particularly for the coastal and remote areas. However, their sustainability is limited by the intensive energy demand of the present methods. Renewable energy is an inexhaustible source of energy, accompanied by cost reduction benefits and clean power generations. Seawater desalination powered with renewable energy sources is being attractive, mainly if the utility-grid is absent. This paper aims to design a renewable energy system, to meet the electrical load demand of large-scale reverse osmosis desalination plant (1500 m3/d), and to find the optimal sizing and techno-economic and environmental feasibility assessment of several off-grid power systems. Two off-grid scenarios with different combinations of hybrid power systems were proposed and compared with the base-case of diesel. The first scenario consists of a photovoltaic, wind turbine, diesel, and generator, while the second scenario is equipped with battery storage devices. A total of eleven hybrid renewable energy systems were modelled, analyzed, and compared with the aid of HOMER Pro software to identify the best performance and the optimal plan configuration. The optimization results show that the proposed photovoltaic/wind/diesel/battery/convertor system outperformed the other alternatives and exhibited reduction potential of 60.7%, 73.7%, 62% and 81.5% lower than the existing diesel with regards to the net present cost, renewable fraction, cost of energy, and carbon dioxide emission, respectively. The optimum case consists of 451 kW solar panels, 25 wind turbines, 250 kW diesel power, battery storage of 352 string, and 358 kW system converter. The results obtained by the optimal plan with low cost and environmental protection aspects would provide a new sight for real field applications of large scales reverse osmosis applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, clean water availability is quite hard especially for people living in remote areas and coastal ones. Even for those who find underground water, they need to treat it before using. Solar still is a very useful method to be used in desalination and purifying water as it uses solar energy which is available around the globe with no cost and is eco-friendly. Many types of solar stills are invented to increase its daily productivity (stepped solar stills, inclined solar stills, pyramid solar still, wick, etc.). In this regard, this paper represents a mini-review of a new type of solar still named tubular solar still (TSS), its working method, thermal analysis, performance and method of enhancement. The remarkable improvement is attributed to the use of nanotechnology (ZnO nano-rod shape) by which the productivity and efficiency are increased by 30% and 38% respectively. Moreover, some futuristic developments on TSS are included in this review. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ongoing to the modern societies and global economic developments, the water is recognized as one of the main concerns of humankind, particularly with the continuous decrease of the freshwater supply. Solar energy, which is abundant and available in many areas, can solve the problem of long-term energy and freshwater reduction in the whole world. Researchers do their best to solve this problem in different ways. Currently, many studies have used solar energy to improve the efficiency of evaporation, solar desalination, and wastewater treatment since it is the basis for freshwater. One of the new ways applied to achieve this is named "hydrogel", which has various structures. Hydrogel, as a novel light-absorbing material, is an effective technique to enhance photothermal solar efficiency conversion by decreasing the heat loss in the heat transfer process due to the heat localization on the air-water interface. Moreover, hydrogel has many pores structures with excellent water transport from the bottom to the water-air interface. Hydrogels are floatable, durable, anti-fouling, and suitable recycling materials, which are energetically favorable for harvesting and amplifying the steam generation. Furthermore, over the past three years, they have revolutionized solar water vaporization with an evaporation efficiency of 95% and the evaporation rate of 4 kg/(m2. hr), which cannot be achieved by other materials. • A deep survey on the state-of-the-art aspects of hydrogel technology of solar steam generation is presented. • Recent developments of water desalination, wastewater remediation, and industrial sewage using hydrogel are discussed. • A new taxonomy of preparation and concretization methods of the hydrogels is proposed. • Performance comparison between hydrogel-based systems and other conventional ones are analyzed. • Future-prospects of hydrogel technologies and its applications are introduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]