What Is Water Desalination Cost?
Desalination 223 (2008) 448–456
Water desalination cost literature: review and assessment
Ioannis C. Karagiannis*, Petros G. Soldatos
Agricultural University of Athens, Department of Agricultural Economics & Rural Development, 75 Iera Odos Street, GR 11855 Athens, Greece Tel. +30 210 5294769; Fax +30 210 5294776; email: i.karagiannis@aua.gr
Received 21 December 2006; accepted 28 February 2007
Abstract As water resources are rapidly being exhausted, more and more interest is paid to the desalination of seawater and brackish water concentrations. Today, current desalination methods require large amounts of energy which is costly both in environmental pollution and in money terms. Many studies of water desalination costs appear regularly …show more content…
As the size of water desalination installations is increasing, detailed cost analysis of process is necessary for important investment decisions. In this paper almost 100 different cases were examined and classified into categories according to the type of feed water, the desalination method and the type of energy used (conventional or renewable). Furthermore, a number of hybrid systems were examined, as well as tools that help estimating the desalination cost are mentioned. In the literature, the calculation of the desalination cost is based on different assumptions, by different authors. There is for example significant variation in interest rates and life expectancy of the equipment. In some cases the estimation of freshwater cost does not include the investment cost and in some others the required labour, or other operation costs. However, the taxonomy of all these cases can facilitate the derivation of useful conclusions. Out of a very large number of publications on the subject, this is an attempt to present the most recent, which are closer to today’s situation and can provide more accurate data for the cost of desalination. 2. Water desalination cost in relevance with the type of feed water According to US Congress (1988), for brackish water, RO unit costs ranged from 0.26h1 (0.32$) to 0.35h (0.44$) per m3, and for seawater, which contains ten times the number of contaminates, RO has unit costs ranging from 1.26h (1.57$) to 2.84h (3.55$) per m3 which in 2004 have fallen to a range of 0.18h (0.22$) to 0.22h (0.28$) per m3. However others mention that the current costs for brackish water lie in the range of 0.06h (0.07$) and 0.07h (0.08$) per m3 and that
Water desalination cost literature: review and assessment
Ioannis C. Karagiannis*, Petros G. Soldatos
Agricultural University of Athens, Department of Agricultural Economics & Rural Development, 75 Iera Odos Street, GR 11855 Athens, Greece Tel. +30 210 5294769; Fax +30 210 5294776; email: i.karagiannis@aua.gr
Received 21 December 2006; accepted 28 February 2007
Abstract As water resources are rapidly being exhausted, more and more interest is paid to the desalination of seawater and brackish water concentrations. Today, current desalination methods require large amounts of energy which is costly both in environmental pollution and in money terms. Many studies of water desalination costs appear regularly …show more content…
As the size of water desalination installations is increasing, detailed cost analysis of process is necessary for important investment decisions. In this paper almost 100 different cases were examined and classified into categories according to the type of feed water, the desalination method and the type of energy used (conventional or renewable). Furthermore, a number of hybrid systems were examined, as well as tools that help estimating the desalination cost are mentioned. In the literature, the calculation of the desalination cost is based on different assumptions, by different authors. There is for example significant variation in interest rates and life expectancy of the equipment. In some cases the estimation of freshwater cost does not include the investment cost and in some others the required labour, or other operation costs. However, the taxonomy of all these cases can facilitate the derivation of useful conclusions. Out of a very large number of publications on the subject, this is an attempt to present the most recent, which are closer to today’s situation and can provide more accurate data for the cost of desalination. 2. Water desalination cost in relevance with the type of feed water According to US Congress (1988), for brackish water, RO unit costs ranged from 0.26h1 (0.32$) to 0.35h (0.44$) per m3, and for seawater, which contains ten times the number of contaminates, RO has unit costs ranging from 1.26h (1.57$) to 2.84h (3.55$) per m3 which in 2004 have fallen to a range of 0.18h (0.22$) to 0.22h (0.28$) per m3. However others mention that the current costs for brackish water lie in the range of 0.06h (0.07$) and 0.07h (0.08$) per m3 and that