Modeling and Adaptive Control of a Hydromechanical Wind-Powered Desalination System for Isolated Areas

Abstract Integration of renewable energy sources and desalination systems can offer potential solutions to face global freshwater scarcity in a clean and sustainable approach. In this work, a standalone system constructed from a reverse osmosis desalination unit powered by a wind turbine through a hydromechanical drivetrain is designed and evaluated in a simulation environment. The adoption of a continuously variable hydromechanical drivetrain enhances the isolation of reverse osmosis operation from the effects of wind speed variations. An adaptive real-time optimal control system, based on the extremum seeking control algorithm, is adopted to ensure freshwater availability under a wide range of operating conditions. The adopted controller maintains the highest efficiency of the reverse osmosis process under different wind speed profiles. The simulation results using realistic wind speed profiles showed the ability of the proposed system to desalinate seawater and produce freshwater with a salinity level below 600 ppm, which is suitable for human consumption.