Competitiveness of Grid Connected Photovoltaic Power Supply for a Desalination Plant under a Prospective Power Market in Paraguay

This paper investigates the economic feasibility of
utilizing partial photovoltaic (PV) power supply for a Brackish
Water Reverse Osmosis (BWRO) Desalination plant in the Gran
Chaco region of Paraguay. Paraguay does not currently have a
power market with a daily spot-price variation, and the
electricity prices are at a level where use of PV power is not
economically beneficial. However, the prospective introduction of
a power market will change the current scenario by introducing
daily price variations that are expected to be strongly correlated
to temperature and the solar irradiation pattern. Under such a
scenario, PV power generation has the potential to reduce the
consumption of grid power at peak prices, and by that reduce the
overall cost of operating the desalination plant. A hypothetical
power market is modelled and simulated in this paper. The
expected price variation in this prospective power market are
used to assess the increase in average power prices required
before PV installations could become economically competitive
for BWRO plants in the Gran Chaco region.