PV-powered water pumping and desalination plant for remote areas in Saudi Arabia

It is important to supply sufficient good quality water to remote areas to satisfy various needs. Due to the high insolation intensities in Saudi Arabia, solar energy was selected to supply electric power to the equipment used in the desalination plant, i.e. submersible pump, reverse osmosis unit, storage batteries, etc. The plant is now under continuous operation (24 h per day). In this paper, the various pieces of equipment in the PV systems and their primary operation and performance are discussed.