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The problems with water desalination and hydrogen production is that if you dont run at a somewhat constant volume you likely aren't at the financial optimum. Y
by noxer 6y ago
The problems with water desalination and hydrogen production is that if you dont run at a somewhat constant volume you likely aren't at the financial optimum. You can do maintenance and stuff when the energy price is high but turning everything off is just likely not financially sustainable. The energy cost is just one factor. If the plant does not use any energy it still has plenty other running cost that wont stop.
We need more solutions that work like pumping water back up into a reservoir (see other reply). These solutions aren't at risk that they need to run on high energy cost anyway to stay profitable.
- ehnto 6y agoDesal plants need to run constantly anyway, at least in my understanding. Desalination plants aren't really something you build for profit, they're to secure your cities clean water supply and are usually taxpayer funded infrastructure projects.
- jillesvangurp 6y agoif you have some reservoir that you can top up, that's a great buffer. Pumping drinking water into the sea because your reservoir is full is not a thing as far as I know. So that implies they either don't produce enough; or they vary production as needed. A realistic/feasible deployment would perhaps pair desalination with solar or wind (more likely on the coast). During electricity peak hours, it might be more lucrative to sell electricity to the grid and then the rest of the time top up the reservoir. I guess depending on how scarce water is, the $ per kwh earned via water might actually be larger than selling to the grid. But you get my point. You are right that these things being funded via tax payer money, makes this kind of lateral thinking less likely. But if someone were to do this commercially, this would be a great way to make it more cost effective.