**1. Introduction**

Renewable energy is currently considered by many to only have viability for a small portion of energy delivery within a larger system due to intermittency.

**2. The modelling exercise**

would require is shown in **Figure 4**.

**Figure 2.** Three stages of modelling exercise.

**Figure 3.** Single source of renewable energy to power RO plant.

**Figure 4.** Methodology to identify minimum number of membranes that the no BSR RO plant requires.

**2.1. Stage 1**

in **Figure 3**.

The modelling exercise was conducted in 3 main stages as shown in **Figure 2**.

Stage 1 employed Solar PV with the No Brine Stream Recovery (BSR) RO plant only as shown

The Use of Renewable Energy for the Provision of Power to Operate Reverse Osmosis…

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.76837

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The methodology used to identify the minimum number of membranes that the RO plant

This intermittency potentially undermines the environmental and energy security advantages on offer from renewable energy and decentralisation of supply.

This chapter:


The scenario used to investigate the technical and financial viability of renewable energy was its use to power reverse osmosis (RO) desalination plants to provide water for the personal use of 50,000 people.

#### **1.1. The location**

Eritrea was selected due to its susceptibility to droughts, and consequential loss of life. The hypothetical pretext for the need for municipal desalination is that Eritrea has a substantial coastline, and the sea level rise expected due to climate change has the potential to hasten the intrusion of saline water into the fresh groundwater aquifers in the coastal zone. The focus of this research will be the island of Massawa, shown below, which is in a particularly dry part of Eritrea with, typically, less than 200 mm of annual rainfall as shown in **Figure 1**. This is in comparison to the UK, where according to the Metrological Office [2], the minimum rainfall between 1981 and 2010 is around 600 mm.

**Figure 1.** Rainfall map of Eritrea.
