MED-CSD Project

Background

Potable water for every human being will be the most precious commodity of the 21st century. At the same time, the current oil crisis with crude oil prices is only the herald of a dramatic energy crisis. Given this combination of the scarcity of water on one hand and the infinity of solar radiation on the other, the following project has been launched: MED CSD - Combined solar power and desalination plants – technico-economic potential in Mediterranean Partner countries.

The MED CSD project

MED CSD is a project co funded by the European Union GD- Research over the next two years. The project takes benefit from the results of past and on-going studies. The main objectives of the project are:

to carry out feasibility studies of power plants combining Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) technology with seawater desalination in the Mediterranean region.
to make a technology review and a selection of concentrated solar power and desalination configurations adapted for application in the Mediterranean partner countries.
to assess the technico-economic potential of this type of combined generation in the region.

Concentration Solar Power Plants (CSP)

Concentrating Solar Collectors are generating high-temperature steam. The solar collectors concentrate solar irradiation 80 – 100 times onto an absorber, in which steam is directly generated. A Fresnel-collector consists of several mirrors and an absorber tube. The sunlight is reflected by these flat mirrors directly to the absorber. Contrary to the parabolic through collectors, the Fresnel collector does not consist of one curved but of 48 flat mirrors with a special arrangement. A uniaxial tracking system always keeps the mirrors in the right angle to the sun. All solar thermal collectors are ready for the market and can be integrated in conventional power plant technology.

Seawater Desalination

Seawater desalination with solar thermal power plants is most efficient because it can use low temperature waste heat from the steam turbine. Seawater desalination is state of the art. World wide 5 billions of tons per year of water are desalinated using several methods as MSF / MVC, MED (Multi-Effect-De¬salination) and RO (Reserve Osmosis).

The international MED-CSD Consortium

Project coordinator

Observatoire Méditerranéen de l’Energie OME France

Partners

Centre de Développement des Energies Renouvelables CDER Morocco
Centre de Recherche et de Développement de l’Electricité et du Gaz CREDEG Algeria
Deutsches Zentrum für Luft-und Raumfart e.V. DLR Germany
Electricité de France EDF
INVEN Engineering GmbH Germany
kernenergien - the solar power company kernenergien Germany
Mekorot Water Company Ltd. MEKOROT Israel
New and Renewable Energy Development and Utilization Authority NREA Egypt
National Energy Research Center NERC Jordan
Office National de l’Eau Potable ONEP Morocco
Palestinian Energy and Environment Research PEC Palestine
Techint TECHINT Italy