Jiaqi Yan

The paper presents a wind–photovoltaic-thermal hybrid-driven two-stage humidification and dehumidification desalination system for remote island regions lacking access to electricity and freshwater resources. By conducting an analysis of the wind and solar energy resources at the experimental site, a suitable wind power station and photovoltaic power station are constructed. The performance of the wind–solar complementary power generation system is then evaluated based on factors such as output power, seawater desalination load power, battery compensation output, system energy consumption, and water production costs. A variable step gradient disturbance method based on the power–duty ratio is proposed for tracking the maximum power point (MPPT) of wind power generation. The output power of the photovoltaic power generation system is optimized, employing a fuzzy logic control (FLC) method to track the MPPT of photovoltaic power generation. This approach effectively addresses the issues of slow speed and low accuracy encountered by traditional MPPT algorithms in tracking the maximum power point (MPP) of both photovoltaic and wind power generations. In order to ensure that the desalination system can operate stably under different weather conditions, eight working modes are designed, and a programmable logic controller (PLC) is used to control the system, which provides a guarantee for stable water production. Experimental results demonstrate that the system exhibits stable performance, achieving a maximum water output of 80.63 Kg/h and daily water yield is 751.32 Kg, the cost of desalination equipment is 1.4892 USD/t.

This research proposes a seawater desalination system driven by photovoltaic and solar thermal energy for remote regions such as islands and seaside villages where fresh water is not accessible. The performance of this system is demonstrated through experiments, and the main concerns are the output of the photovoltaic power generation system, power quantity, water yield, and the loads under different solar irradiance and temperature. In this system, a PLC is used as the controller to adjust the water pump by the collection and processing of sensor data. A load switching time system is designed to select different operating schemes under different environments in order to save energy. The control method of this system is developed to ensure that the photovoltaic power generation system does not undervoltage while maintaining the normal operation of the desalination system. An improved Perturbation and Observation (P&O) algorithm is also proposed as a new Maximum Point Power Tracking (MPPT) method to solve the problem of misjudgment and oscillation after tracking the maximum power point (MPP) in the traditional P&O algorithm. The simulation test in the MATLAB/Simulink environment shows that when external irradiance changes, the improved P&O algorithm can track the MPP faster than the traditional P&O algorithm, and the amplitude of oscillation on the MPP is smaller. The hardware experiments show that this system can operate stably and flexibly, and it is capable of producing 5.18 kWh of electric energy and 335.81 kg of freshwater per day. The maximum yield of the unit can reach 565.75 kg per day and the maximum daily power generation is 8.12 kWh.