Elsevier

Renewable Energy

Volume 33, Issue 6, June 2008, Pages 1137-1146
Renewable Energy

Review
Sustainable water and energy in Gaza Strip

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2007.10.002Get rights and content

Abstract

Shortage of fresh water is a common problem in different areas of the world including the Middle East. Desalination of seawater and brackish water is the cheapest way to obtain fresh water in many regions. This research focuses on the situation in Gaza Strip where there is a severe shortage in the energy and water supply. The depletion of fresh water supplies and lack of wastewater treatments result in environmental problems. A solar-powered co-generation plant producing water and energy is proposed to be a suitable solution for Gaza Strip. Solar energy, using concentrating solar thermal power (CSP) technologies, is used to produce electricity by a steam cycle power plant. Then the steam is directed to a desalination plant where it is used to heat the seawater to obtain freshwater.

The main objective of this research is to outline a solution for the water problems in Gaza Strip, which includes a co-generation (power and water) solar-powered plant. The research includes four specific objectives: (1) an environmental and economic comparison between solar and fossil fuel energies, (2) technical details for the co-generation plant, (3) cost and funding, (4) the benefits.

Section snippets

1. Introduction

Gaza Strip is 360 km2 with a high-density population of about 3823 persons/km2 [1] (most of the people in Gaza Strip are the generations of the refugees who fled their homes in the 1948 and 1967 Arab–Israeli wars [2]), so Gaza Strip represents one of the most densely populated areas.

There is now a water crisis in Gaza Strip. According to one estimate, the people of Gaza over-pump approximately 160 million cubic meters (MCM) of water from the coastal aquifer per year, but the sustainable yield of

Optimum solution

Water problems are not local; they extend into the neighboring regions. For example, in the Gaza Strip, aquifer is readily deteriorating due to its fast depletion, and this will have serious impacts on the coastal plain aquifer within Israel itself. This is due to the strong probability that there exists an interchange between the two [5]. If long-term needs of Gaza Strip are to be taken into account, sustainable resources of both water and energy should be secured. We will demonstrate an

Environmental

Fossil fuels are nonrenewable sources of energy, they have adverse impacts on the environment, and their supply is finite. Burning fossil fuels is the largest single source of pollution in the atmosphere. The combustion of fossil fuels produces air pollutants including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbon compounds, carbon monoxide and particulate matter. In the atmosphere, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides are converted into sulfuric acid and nitric acid, the components of acid rain.

Co-generation (energy and water) plant

The proposed co-generation plant has a water capacity of 100 MCM/year and a power capacity of 2.5 billion kWh/year. This plant will be built in three stages. The power and water capacities that will be reached in each stage and the expected time are illustrated in Table 1. The total area needed for the project is approximately 13 km2, since 5 km2 is required for the collector field to produce 1 TWh/year of electricity [9], [10].

The eastern border of the Gaza Strip is a suitable location for this

Technical details

Solar thermal co-generation plant consists of three major parts (subsystems): the solar field, the power plant, and the seawater desalination plant. Fig. 4 shows schematic chart for the solar thermal co-generation process and the interactions between the three major parts [12].

Concentrate (brine) disposal

There are different options for the disposal of the concentrate rejects: disposal to a wastewater plant, deep-well injection, co-locating with an existing power or wastewater treatment plant, and submarine ocean outfalls.

Disposal to wastewater plant: In this method, the concentrate is discharged to the sewer system; but precautions should be taken to insure that the wastewater treatment plant can still meet water quality standards after the addition of the reject concentrate. This may require

The cost

The cost of the project includes the system used such as: parabolic trough, steam turbine, electricity generators, multi-stage desalination and infrastructure (roads, pipe lines, power transmission, etc.). Besides that there are the operation and maintenance costs.

Estimation for the total cost of a plant with capacities of 100 MCM/year for water and 2.5 billion kWh/year for the power is approximately 1.1–1.3 billion US$. This estimation depended on a paper, presented at the MENAREC conference in

Conclusions

Solving the problem of water in Gaza Strip is an urgent humanitarian need and it should not be part of the regional politics.

The co-generation plant powered by solar energy seems to be an ideal solution for solving Gaza Strip problems. Abundance fresh water can combat desertification and trigger the economic development of arid regions. Besides that expansion of the plant to higher capacities in the future so that water and energy can be exported to the neighbors will bring economical benefits

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Friends of the Earth Middle East; Ed Hamlyn, The University of Texas at El Paso; Dr. Franz Trieb, Institute of Technical Thermodynamics, German Aerospace Center and all the people that supported us in this project. This work is part of the Center for Environmental Resource Management (CERM) at the University of Texas at El Paso. The US State Department Agreement S-ECAPE-04-GR-120 (DH) “Good Water Neighbors Community Planning Studies” and NSF ADVANCE grant helped to fund

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