Renewable Energy 72 (2014) 377e385

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Renewable Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene

An energy management approach for renewable energy integration

with power generation and water desalination
Malak Al-Nory a, b, *, Mohamed El-Beltagy a, c
a
College of Engineering, Effat University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
b
Engineering Systems Division, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
c
Engineering Math. & Physics Dept., Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The share of the renewable energy sources (RES) in the global electricity market is substantially
Received 21 April 2014 increasing as a result of the commitment of many countries to increase the contribution of the RES to
Accepted 17 July 2014 their energy mix. However, the integration of RES in the electricity grid increases the complexity of the
Available online
grid management due to the variability and the intermittent nature of these energy sources. Energy
storage solutions such as batteries offer either short-term storage that is not sufcient or longer period
Keywords:
storage that is signicantly expensive. This paper introduces an energy management approach which can
Renewable energy
be applied in the case of power and desalinated water generation. The approach is based on mathe-
Storage
Energy management
matical optimization model which accounts for random variations in demands and energy supply. The
Optimization approach allows using desalination plants as a deferrable load to mitigate for the variability of the
Random variations renewable energy supply and water and/or electricity demands. A mathematical linear programming
Desalination model is developed to show the applicability of this idea and its effectiveness in reducing the impact of
the uncertainty in the environment. The model is solved for the real world case of Saudi Arabia. The
optimal solution accounts for random variations in the renewable energy supply and water and/or
electricity demands while minimizing the total costs for generating water and power.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction the dominant types of renewable energy sources are non-

The development and use of renewable energy has experienced
rapid growth over the past few years. In the next few decades all
sustainable energy systems will have to be based on the rational
use of traditional resources and greater use of renewable energy
[1]. As a result, the share of the renewable energy sources (RES) in
the global electricity market will substantially increase. The inte-
gration of the RES in the electricity grid will increase the
complexity of the grid management due to the variability and the
intermittent nature of these energy sources. The success in inte-
grating the RES into the grid depends on many technological de-
velopments of the electricity grid in network communications,
decentralized generation, and demand response. In addition, the
grid will be characterized by the level of adoption and integration
of the renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. However,
* Corresponding author. College of Engineering, Effat University, P.O. Box 34689,
Jeddah 21478, Saudi Arabia. Tel.: 1 966 50 5527266.
E-mail addresses: malnory@effatuniversity.edu.sa (M. Al-Nory), melbeltagy@
effatuniversity.edu.sa (M. El-Beltagy).
dispatchable, i.e., cannot be turned on and off at will or its output
adjusted as in regular fossil fuel power plants. The grid must be able
to manage this type of variations to supply power to its clients
efciently.
Distribution Management Systems operated by distribution
utilities and Energy Management Systems operated by end con-
sumers are typically used to manage the supply. Demand Side
Management including demand response, intelligent energy sys-
tems, and smart loads improves the stability by focusing on the
consumption side [2]. With a large portfolio of 40% or more
renewable energy sources integrated into the grid, a critical situa-
tion is created because of the sudden interruption or variation of a
large portion of the supply. Other types of storage technologies are
being developed and implemented to meet the variable supply and
demand. This has led to the emergence of storage as a crucial
element in the management of energy from renewable sources,
allowing energy to be released into the grid during peak hours
when it is more valuable [1]. Several studies have also examined
the operational challenges in the development of renewable power,
such as the mismatch between capacity and generation, the

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2014.07.032
0960-1481/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
378 M. Al-Nory, M. El-Beltagy / Renewable Energy 72 (2014) 377e385
contradictions of high generation cost and the xed feed-in tariff,
the lag in grid construction, and regulatory uncertainty and policy
inconsistency. Despite the promising recent growth rates in the
capacity of RES, it is established that the two most pressing issues
for successful integration into the grid are the capability of the
electricity grid infrastructure and the availability of backup systems
[3].
In addition, increased environmental concerns have led to the
formation of energy and climate policies which suggest a signi-
cant reduction of CO2 emissions. As a result, the integration of RES
in the energy mix is expected to rise rapidly as shown in Fig. 1 [4].
Yet, electricity generated from renewable sources can rarely pro-
vide immediate response to demand as these sources do not deliver
a regular and easily adjustable supply to consumption needs. The
constant mismatch between supply and demand can have a serious
impact on grid reliability and security of supply. This constitutes a
challenge, which requires the introduction of advanced energy
storage solutions. But it is widely known that electricity is difcult
to store as this requires bulky and costly equipment [1].
This study proposes an energy management approach to
manage renewable energy connected to the grid based on mathe-
matical model which considers the random variations of the supply
and the demand (of both water and electricity) through an
expansion method discussed in Section 5. The approach can be
implemented in the case of power and water generation. The water
storage capacity can be used allowing for the release of power back
to the gird to absorb variability of supply from renewable energy.
The case of Saudi Arabia is solved using the proposed approach and
model to provide the decision makers with a strategy to comple-
ment their announced ambitious plan of integrating renewable
energy to the national energy mix to produce 52 GW by 2032 [5].
The remaining sections of this paper is organized as follows.
Section 2 reviews the energy storage techniques. Section 3 dis-
cusses the random variations of the renewable sources and the
various demands. Section 4 describes the modes of integration of
desalination capacity with the electricity grid. Section 5 describes
the proposed mathematical model and the expansion method.
Section 6 uses a case study to illustrate the mathematical model
and discusses the analysis results. Finally, Section 7 concludes the
paper and provides interesting directions for future work.
Fig. 1. Expected scenario for a worldwide energy mix until 2050 [4].
2. Storage techniques
There is a plethora of work on the integration of power storage
into the grid to compensate for sudden supply reduction. Yet, the
optimal active integration of storage devices and energy storage
systems into the grid is still not fully developed and faces many
operational, technical and market challenges [6,7]. The integration
of energy storage techniques into the grid could obviously provide
an important and even crucial approach to deal with the inter-
mittency of renewable energy and the associated unpredictability
of its output, allowing the surplus to be stored during the periods
when generation exceeds the demand and later the stored energy
can be used to cover periods when the load is greater than the
generation [8]. There are various types of storage techniques pro-
posed, some of which are well developed, while others are still in
the development phase. These storage techniques differ in porta-
bility (permanent or portable), durability (long or short term),
maximum power requirement, and other factors which determine
their characteristics and their proposed eld of application [1].
Electrical energy storage refers to a process of converting elec-
tricity from a power network into a form that can be stored for
converting back to electricity when desired. This technique which
can provide many benets by reducing on-peak energy and load
leveling has numerous applications in commercial buildings,
portable devices, transport vehicles and stationary energy re-
sources [9]. It is expected that electricity storage will have a dual
purpose in the next few years [4]. On one hand, it will enable
renewable energy to be captured and stored for later use, without
wasting additional resources for electricity generation; therefore,
increasing its efciency. On the other hand, it can also serve as a
valuable tool that will provide the needed exibility in energy
supply, by smoothing out the mismatch between supply and de-
mand. Given the current attempts being made toward the reduc-
tion of CO2 emissions, electrical energy storage technologies along
with renewable energy technologies are expected to be a necessary
element of the built environment in the future [4].
The Pumped Hydro Storage (PHS) technology has the advantage
that it is readily available. It uses the power of water as a highly
concentrated renewable energy source. This technology is currently
the most used for high-power applications (a few tens of GWh or
 M. Al-Nory, M. El-Beltagy / Renewable Energy 72 (2014) 377e385
Fig. 2. Pumped Hydro Storage with the pumping energy supplied by wind turbines [1].
100 of MW). Pumped storage subtransmission stations will be
essential for the storage of electrical energy. The principle is
generally well known: during periods when demand is low, these
stations use electricity to pump the water from the lower reservoir
to the upper reservoir as shown in Fig. 2. When demand is very
high, the water ows out of the upper reservoir and activates the
turbines to generate high-value electricity during the peak hours
[1].
It is becoming increasingly important for any market with a
signicant fraction of energy portfolio from renewable sources to
create mechanisms through which it can respond to the unpre-
dictable and the correlated changes in electricity supply. The
electrical energy from RES can be stored in storage batteries and
can be used when needed. However, this solution (i.e., the batte-
ries) has proven to be very expensive and difcult to implement on
a large scale [2]. Desalination facilities connected to the electricity
grid represent an opportunity to overcome such a challenge. The
work in Ref. [10] proposed an alternative approach to energy
storage based on integration with large desalination plants. The
idea is to use desalination plants as a storage for excess renewable
energy supply and to work as deferrable load to mitigate for the
renewable energy supply interruption. In essence, we are replacing
power storage with water storage. The implementation of this idea
requires solving a decision optimization question (described in
Section 5) which accounts for the random variations of the de-
mands and the renewable energy supply which is exactly the
contribution of the present work. The optimal solution provided by
this work involves determining how to optimally schedule
Fig. 3. Probabilistic renewable power generated from the wind [11].
379
desalination production so as to integrate it with the electricity grid
to provide the required buffer given the random variations in de-
mands and energy supply.
3. Random behavior of renewable energy and demands
The behavior of the renewable energy sources is a stochastic
phenomenon. In particular, the wind speed is highly dependent on
the weather conditions, the geographical region, and the seasons of
the year. The analytical method proposed in Ref. [11] estimates the
mean and the variance of power output variation due to the sto-
chastic wind speed. The proposed analytical method was validated
by comparing the data from simulations. The energy production
from wind farms can be treated as a random variable due to the
stochastic nature of the wind behavior.
Many probabilistic models have been proposed to evaluate and
predict the reliability performance of wind power generation with
the presence of stochastic wind speeds, uncertain power demands,
and challenging maintenance activities (e.g. off-shore farms). The
main objective of these studies is to quantify (and hence mitigate)
the uncertainties in the wind energy production by considering all
possible risk scenarios that could occur during the energy pro-
duction process. Fig. 3 (left-side) shows the probabilistic behavior
of the renewable power generated as a function of the wind speed.
The renewable power generated can be approximated as a random
variable with Weibull or normal (Gaussian) distribution. Fig. 3
(right-side) shows a typical simulation of the Probability Distribu-
tion Function (PDF) of generated renewable energy after assuming
380 M. Al-Nory, M. El-Beltagy / Renewable Energy 72 (2014) 377e385
Fig. 4. Fluctuation of instantaneous power on March 2004 at the Cap-Chat (Canada)
wind farm [1].
Gaussian distribution of the wind speed. As shown in the gure, the
deviation in the generated power is around 30% of the mean value.
Renewable resources uctuate independently from demand as
shown in Fig. 4 [1]. Power consumption (electricity demands) by
users during the day is characterized by disparity and uctuation,
meaning that minimum consumption is nearly half of the
maximum peak. Fig. 5 shows a typical daily consumption pattern in
Saudi Arabia during a holiday in January 2012 and a work day in
August 2012. The ratio between peak and average power levels of
end-user demand often reaches a value of 10.
4. Integration of desalination with the electricity grid
Desalination has been realized as a viable solution to water
scarcity issues around the world. Thermal desalination in which
fossil fuel (i.e., oil, gas, or coal) is the main drive to operate the
process such as in Multi-Stage Flash (MSF), Multi-Effect Distillation
(MED) and Vapor Compression (VC) is an energy intensive process
especially in areas with higher water salinity levels such as in the
Middle East and the Gulf countries (35,000e45,000 ppm salinity
levels). Therefore, these technologies are typically feasible only in
the case of power and water cogeneration. The power plant is
typically connected to the grid to export produced electricity.
Membrane-based desalination such as Reverse Osmosis (RO) and
Electrodialysis (ED) can be built as stand-alone plants and are
connected to the grid to import electricity required for the opera-
tion (i.e., pumping and mechanical processes). For detailed
description of commercially available desalination technologies the
reader is referred to Ref. [12].
Desalination can also be powered by renewable energy sources
such as Photovoltaic (PV)-RO, Wind-RO and Wind-Mechanical VC.
Fig. 5. Typical average daily power consumption in Saudi Arabia [5].
In this case, the plant can be designed to be coupled to the grid and
the renewable energy sources are used as a fuel substitute in case of
grid supply interruption [13]. The electricity consumption levels for
normal desalination operation for different technologies are shown
in Table 1 [14,15].
Desalination plants have storage tanks with capacities from a
few hours to a few days for large-scale plants to cover shortages
during shutdowns for maintenance or emergency conditions.
Aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) can store billions of cubic me-
ters of desalinated water and are used for strategic long-term
storage. ASR systems need to be in strategic locations such as
near plants and close to major pipelines to deliver water to demand
concentrations, or near pumping stations associated with munic-
ipal high water use centers. In addition to strategic storage, distri-
bution systems need to provide certain storage capacity to meet
shorter demand uctuations and system emergencies of a short
duration. The normal operating storage is the storage required to
compensate for the impact of the variation on water demand on the
water production facilities. Two hours of an average day ow may
be used as normal operating storage (i.e., operating
storage average day demand/24 h)  2 h [16].
Typically, the connectivity of the conventional stand-alone
desalination plants, such as the dominant technology in the mar-
ket today i.e., Reverse Osmosis (RO), to the grid is a one-way link in
which the desalination plant imports the electricity required from
the grid. However, desalination plants with appropriate technolo-
gies can implement a two-way link in which the plant would
import the electricity needed for the operation (pumping and
mechanical processes) but also would act as a storage device and
export electricity to the grid during interruption of the power
supply, which is the focus of this paper.
Desalination units (of appropriate technologies) can use smart
controls to be able to dynamically adapt the power consumption to
consume electricity when there is enough power in the grid and
not to consume when the power is scarce. Based on the desalinated
water demand, the capacity of the plant, and the typical energy
consumption, each desalination plant realizes specic electricity
needs for each time period. The desalination plant typically realizes
minimum energy consumption and the energy consumption
required for operating optimally. The difference between these two
levels of consumption is the range of the amount of energy that the
plant is willing to deliver to the grid should the need arise. From the
grid point of view the desalination plant acts like a virtual battery
which is capable of delivering this amount of power for each time
period. Fig. 6 shows a schematic representation of the integration of
desalination plants into the grid.
In this case of integration, between power generation and
desalination plants there will be a market interface. In the case of a
centralized authority to control desalination and power production
modeling this interface is straightforward. The model can express
the overall costs or benets of generation of power and production
of desalinated water. However, the incentive of desalination plants
to collaborate with the grid and act as storage devices must be
Table 1
Electricity consumption of desalination technologies [14,15].
Technology Electricity (kWh/m3) Feed water
salinity (ppm)
RO without energy recovery 5.9 25,000
RO with energy recovery 3e4 25,000
ED 1.22 (50% after 3 years) 3000
VC 8.5e16 45,000
MSF 4e5 Any
MED 1e1.5 Any
 M. Al-Nory, M. El-Beltagy / Renewable Energy 72 (2014) 377e385
Fig. 6. Schematic representation of desalination plants integrated with the grid [10].
dened for the case of separate authorities running the operations
of desalination and power. The desalination plants might be
motivated by reduced rate of energy consumption or a more ex-
ible pricing scheme which creates a market interface between po-
wer production and desalination plant. The interface can be such
that there is no xed demand or commitment that desalination
plant has to provide of power, but rather the amount is variable i.e.,
a contract if the desalination plant commits a certain amount they
will be paid certain dollar amount per year. This might be expressed
as a price curve that they are getting paid for every level of
commitment they make. The commitment then is variable and the
price that they will be paid for the commitment is a function of the
commitment so they can select whatever commitment they want.
The desalination units make the independent decision and the
interaction with power units is this contractual interface based on
the agreement. Section 5 presents the mathematical model for the
optimal scheduling of desalination production and storage
assuming the case of a centralized authority to control both desa-
lination and power generation.
5. Optimal scheduling of desalination production and storage
In a previous work we developed a deterministic Mixed Integer
Linear Programming (LP) model to support strategic decisions on
desalination production and strategic storage to optimally allocate
desalinated water to demand points [14,15]. We also extended the
LP model to support strategic decisions on investment alternatives
comprising combinations of the different desalination locations,
capacities, technologies, and energy sources [17]. The mathematical
model we propose in the present work identies the optimal
scheduling of the production and the storage of desalinated water
such that the water stored is harnessed as a buffer for the grid. The
trade-off between the production of power versus particular
scheduling of desalination plants production and storage is
expressed in the model directly by the cost of power generation and
water desalination.
In case of uncertainty in one of the input parameters to the
system (e.g. renewable supply, water and electricity demands), the
uncertainty will propagate to the different decision variables of the
system. The uncertainty may be due to random (probabilistic)
variations of the input parameters or due to noise imposed over
these parameters. In the current work we consider uncertainty due
to random variations and we look into uncertainty due to noise in
future work.
Parameters with random variation can be expanded using the
Polynomial Chaos Expansion (PCE), in which the random parameter
is evaluated as a summation of nonlinear functionals of a set of
381
standard Gaussian random variables fxi qg i1 multiplied by
deterministic kernels [18]. The parameter q is the output of a
random experiment. PCE has advantages in evaluating both sta-
tistical moments of any order and the PDF of a system's response
which represents a complete solution of the random systems. After
truncation at order P and M random variables fxi qgM
i1 , the system
variable 4 in terms of PCE is written in the form [18]:
X
PC
4q 4i Ji fxn qg (1)
i0
where fJi gPCi0 is a set of orthogonal polynomials of random vari-
ables, 4i are the deterministic kernels and PC 1 is the number of
terms after truncation. Random variation of any variable will cause
all other variables in the system to have components in the sto-
chastic dimensions and hence expanded as in equation (1) using
PCE.
In the LP models we can follow the same procedure given in Ref.
[18] for a system of equations to nd the equivalent deterministic
LP model. This is done by (a) expanding all variables using PCE (as
in equation (1)), (b) substituting in the objective function and in the
constraints, and then (c) taking the ensemble average after multi-
plying by Jk ; 0  k  PC. The equivalent system contains the mean
values of the system variables in addition to the new kernels.
A simplied model can be derived if we assume that the random
variations occur only due to one Gaussian random variable x1(q) in
the system. This is the case of applying the rst order rst
dimension PCE (i.e. P M 1). In this case, the system variable 4 is
simplied as
4q 4 s4 x1 q (2)
where 4 is the mean value and s4 is the standard deviation. For
simplicity we write the mean value as 4 instead of 4. The range of
each decision variable 4 is
4  ks4  4q  4 ks4 (3)
where k is chosen according to the required probability (i.e., con-
dence factor). Table 2 shows typical values for k and the corre-
sponding probabilities.
The LP deterministic model representing scheduling of desali-
nated water production and storage and considering random var-
iations of the renewable energy supply and water and/or electricity
demands as explained above can be expressed as follows:
Renewable energy supply: REt q REt sREt x1 q
Water demand: DW W
t q Dt sDW x1 q
t
Electricity demand: DEt q DEt sDE x1 q
t
For simplicity, we assume that the uncertainty in both renew-
able energy supply and water and electricity demands depends on
the same random variable x1 q. Adding more random variables to
the model is then straightforward.
The decision variables are extended in a similar fashion and we
get:
Table 2
Different values of k and the corresponding probabilities.
k P4  ks4  4q  4 ks4 
1 68.3%
2 95.4%
3 99.7%
382 M. Al-Nory, M. El-Beltagy / Renewable Energy 72 (2014) 377e385

The amount of desalinated water produced by desalination PWit Qit  DWit (6)
plant i at day t:
Applying the PCE procedure and due to linearity of the problem,
Qit q Qit sQit x1 q the deviations will be computed similarly as

The amount of desalinated water pushed out to various distri- sPWit sQit  sDWit (7)
bution points from desalination plant i at day t:
The amount of desalinated water stored at the storage tanks at
DWit q DWit sDWit x1 q desalination plant i at day t is dened as
The amount of desalinated water pumped to the storage tank of
Vit Vit1 PWit  Wit ; where Vit1 Vi0 at t 0 (8)
desalination plant i at day t:
Applying the PCE procedure and due to linearity of the problem,
PWit q PWit sPWit x1 q
the deviations will be computed similarly as
The amount of desalinated water stored at the storage tank of
desalination plant i at day t: sVit sVit1 sPWit  sWit ; where sVit1 sV 0 at t 0 (9)
i

Vit q Vit sVit x1 q The maximum possible quantity produced by a desalination

plant i at any day t is limited to its maximum capacity Si.
The amount of desalinated water pushed out to various demand
points from storage tank of desalination plant i at day t: Qit ksQit  Si (10)

Wit q Wit sWit x1 q The upper and lower bounds of the volume of water stored at
each water storage tank of desalination plant i are limited to its
The amount of electricity produced by all power plants at day t: maximum Vimax and minimum Vimin capacities:

Pt q Pt sPt x1 q Vit ksQ  Vimax

it
(11)
Then the objective function can be expressed as Vit  ksQ  Vimin
it

Fq F sF x1 q The electricity produced is bounded by the maximum genera-

tion capacity Pmax:
where DW E
t , Dt , Qit, DWit, Vit, Wit, Pt, REt and F are the mean (average)
values and sDW , sDE , sQit , sDWit , sVit , sWit , sPt , sREt and sF are the Pt ksPt  P max (12)
t t
standard deviations. The total minimum quantities pushed directly from desalination
Comparing to the deterministic LP model, we now have three plants and the total minimum quantities pushed out of the storage
extra inputs sRE , sDE , sDW and ve extra decision variables sQit , tanks should satisfy the maximum possible demand on the desa-
t t
sDWit , sVit , sWit , sPt in addition to the standard deviation of the linated water:
objective function sF .
X  X 
The random LP model can be formulated as follows: DWit  ksDWit Wit  ksWit  DW
t ksDW t
(13)
XX   X X V  i i
Min CitOM Qit ksQit Cit Vit ksVit
t i t i The maximum possible amount of water distributed from stor-
X  
CtE Pt ksPt (4) age tank of desalination plant i at any dayt is bounded by the
t minimum of what we have stored in the previous day:

where CitOM is the operational and management cost of producing Wit ksWit  Vit1  ksVit1 ; with Vit1 Vi0 at t 0
one m3 of desalinated water from desalination plant i at day t, CitV is (14)
the cost of storing one m3 of desalinated water in the storage tank
of desalination plant i at day t and CtE is the electricity generation The maximum possible amount of water distributed directly
cost at day t and the objective function minimizes the maximum from desalination plant i at any dayt is bounded by the minimum
possible cost (i.e., F ksF ). quantity produced in this day:
Such that the following constraints apply:
The minimum possible value of all decision variables and all DWit ksDWit  Qit  ksQit (15)
standard deviations should be non-negative, i.e.: The minimum demand on power by desalination plant i at day t
is always greater than the minimum DESmin
i to run basic opera-
Qit  ksQ  0 tions and maintain steady operation to avoid shutdowns:
it
DWit  ksDW  0
it    
PWit  ksPW  0 Qit  ksQit EiQ PWit  ksPWit ; EiV  DESmin
i (16)
it (5)
Vit  ksV  0
it
Wit  ksW  0 where EiQ and EiV are the power required to produce and store one
it m3 of desalinated water respectively.
Pt  ksP  0
t The maximum expected generated power should be limited by
the maximum capacity of the power plant:
and sQit , sDWit , sVit , sWit andsPt are also non-negative quantities.
The amount of desalinated water pumped to the storage tanks at Pt ksPt  P max (17)
desalination plant i at dayt is dened as
 M. Al-Nory, M. El-Beltagy / Renewable Energy 72 (2014) 377e385 383

The maximum expected supply by renewable sources and the Table 3

minimum power of generation plants should meet the maximum Case study desalination plants data.

possible demand on electricity including the maximum possible Technology Daily Min. storage Max. storage Electricity Initial
desalination electricity demand: capacity (thousand (thousand required storage
(thousand m3) m3) m3) (kWh/m3) (thousand
    X  m3)
REt ksRE Pt  ksPt  DEt ksDE Qit ksQit EiQ
t
i RO 737.23 61.44 2211.69 4.5 200
X  MED-VC 113.42 9.45 340.26 1.0 35
PWit ksPWit EiV MSF 4820.35 401.7 14,461.05 4.0 1400
i
(18)
For situations of interruption or reduction to minimum of sup- years. The domestic consumption of fossil fuels is expected to
ply by renewable sources, the power deviations should compensate nearly triple by 2030. The annual energy consumption in Saudi
this reduction. Arabia is 1766 TWh (comprising of 54% oil and 46% gas) [5].
We used Saudi Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) plants for
    X  the desalination capacity [19]. We aggregate the plants by the
REt  ksRE Pt ksPt  DEt ksDE Qit ksQit EiQ
t
i
technology as shown in Table 3. The total planned desalination
X  capacity by 2014 by all plants is 2070 million m3/annual [20] with
PWit ksPWit EiV 13% RO, 2% MED, 85% MSF. We assumed the minimum storage re-
i
quirements of 2 h of operation for each desalination technology
(19) capacity, maximum of 3 days, and initial storage of 10% of the
The deviation in the generated power will be due to deviation in maximum capacity. We also assumed that the storage tanks contain
the water demand and deviation in the electricity demand. This initially around 10% of their maximum capacities. The daily demand
means that the deviation in the generated power should be greater on desalinated water is 2.871 million m3 [20]. The electric power
than the deviation in the electricity demand: generation capacity of Saudi Electricity Company (SEC) is
50,043 MW and from SWCC and major subscribers such as ARA-
sPt  sDE (20) MCO and SABIC is 15,781 MW [20]. The total energy consumption is
t
272,768 million kWh [20].
The excess power of the renewable energy sources should be We used the National Energy Plan released by King Abdulla
exploited in producing and pumping extra desalinated water Xit Center for Atomic and Renewable Energy (KACARE) [5] to guide our
This can be modeled by computing the difference between the assumptions on the capacity of the Renewable Energy sources. The
renewable energy sources and the power required for the pro- proposed energy mix advertises a total of 52 GW by 2030 (41 GW of
duction and the pumping of desalinated water to the demand Solar, 7 GW of Wind, 1 GW of Geothermal, and 3 GW of Waste to
points and to the storage tanks: energy). For cost data we assumed 7.84 $/MWh for operational
X   X X costs to generate power, we assumed xed water storage costs of
Xit EiQ EiV  REt ksRE  Qit EiQ  PWit EiV $100 for 1 thousand m3 and 0.47, 0.54, 0.65 $/m3 as the O&M costs
i i i of the three desalination technologies respectively [19].
(21) We assumed a planning horizon of one week. The model is
assumed to be run every period to adjust the scheduling of pro-
To simplify the computation of Xit, we can assume that it is
duction and storage for the next periods. Other parameters values
proportional to the capacities of the storage tanks, i.e.:
are as follows.
" #
  V max X X
Xit EiQ EiV  P i max REt  Qit EiQ  PWit EiV (22)  k 1 (68% probability)
Vi i i  Time horizon : 7 days
i
 The mean daily renewable energy supplies are shown in Table 4.
Then the amount of water stored in the tanks can be expressed Deviation of 40% is considered.
as 3
 The mean water demand DW t 2871 (thousand m ) for each
days.
Vit Vit1 PWit  Wit Xit ; where Vit1 Vi0 at t 0  The daily mean electricity demands are shown in Table 4.
(23)  Maximum generated power by all plants Pmax 1,579,776 MW/
day
6. Case study results and analysis

The above described LP model can be implemented in a math-

Table 4
ematical modeling language (e.g. AMPL or GAMS) and solved using The average daily RE and electricity demands.
a mathematical programming solver (e.g. CPLEX) to produce
optimal scheduling for production (of water and power) and stor- Day Average daily Average daily
RE supply (MWh) electricity demand
age using a specic case study. We use the case of Saudi Arabia the DEt (MWh)
world largest producer of desalinated water. Saudi Arabia has
1 20,400 597,847
recently directed its policies toward building an optimum energy
2 2160 747,310
mix that diversies the energy source from its current focus on 3 20,400 672,579
fossil fuels. This is due to the growth of the energy drivers according 4 20,400 896,772
to 2011 statistics; a 3.2% increase in population, a 4.5% growth in 5 2160 747,310
economics, and a 6% in industrial production. Saudi Arabia also 6 20,400 747,310
7 20,400 672,579
witnessed a 27% growth in fossil fuel consumption in the last 4
384 M. Al-Nory, M. El-Beltagy / Renewable Energy 72 (2014) 377e385

Table 5 Table 8
Model output for mean values. Model output for 5% deviation in water demand.

Day Qit (Thousand DWit (Thousand Vit (Thousand Wit (Thousand Day Qit DWit Vit Wit Xit
m3) m3) m3) m3) (Thousand m3) (Thousand m3) (Thousand m3) (Thousand (Thousand
m3) m3)
1 1709 1709 473 1162
2 2871 2871 473 0 1 1380 1380 3769 1635 3769
3 2871 2871 473 0 2 1380 1380 2278 1635 144
4 2871 2871 473 0 3 737 737 4335 2278 4335
5 2871 2871 473 0 4 0 0 6641 2871 5177
6 2871 2871 473 0 5 0 0 4318 2871 548
7 2871 2871 473 0 6 0 0 6623 2871 5177
7 0 0 8829 2871 5177
Total Cost 52 million $/week.
Total Cost 45.5 million $/week.

Table 6
Model power outputs for mean values. model), the desalinated water will leave the system directly from
Day Pt (MWh) REt (MWh) sPt (MWh) Water power Excess power the storage tanks and not from the desalination plants. This will be
cost-effective and has an additional advantage to renew the water
1 594,510 20,400 10,200 6863 13,537
2 757,742 2160 1080 11,512 9352
stored in the storage tanks.
3 673,891 20,400 10,200 11,512 8888 We can also see as shown in Table 7 that the water level in-
4 898,084 20,400 10,200 11,512 8888 creases with time as we have excess power from the renewable
5 757,742 2160 1080 11,512 9352 sources. This was one of the main objectives of the current model.
6 748,622 20,400 10,200 11,512 8888
It is expected with the time to reach the maximum capacity of the
7 673,891 20,400 10,200 11,512 8888
storage tanks. In this case, the excess renewable power can be
switched to the grid to reduce the cost of the power production
We start by running the model with zero deviations in the de- and switch back again when the level of the stored water de-
mands (i.e. sDE sDE 0) and without exploiting the excess power creases. Switching the renewable power is not implemented in the
t t
from the renewable energy sources (i.e. Xit 0; ci; t). current mathematical model but we plan consider it in future
Table 5 shows the results obtained from this run with a total cost work.
of 52 million dollars per week for the cogeneration of electricity Table 8 shows the results in case of 5% deviation in the water
and desalinated water shown in the table are the summation of all demand at all days (i.e. 144 thousand m3). The cost is approximately
desalination plants. All deviations in the water variables are zero in the same as in the previous case. The deviations in the water de-
this case and hence not displayed in the table. The initial stored mand will be compensated by the extra produced water Xit as
water in the tanks are used with the produced desalinated water to shown in the table. It will be decreased or increased to cover the
meet the demand in the rst day, then the total stored water rea- decrease or increase in the water demand. As the system reaches its
ches a steady state of 473 thousands m3 (3% of the maximum steady state (from day 4), the 5% deviation in the water demand will
available storage). This means that the optimal cost-effective so- cause equivalent 5% deviation in the desalinated water comes out
lution does not require initial huge amounts of stored water. Also, it from the storage tanks Wit . This is reasonable as the demand will
means we have enough storage capacity in Saudi Arabia for future be satised only from water that comes out from the storage tanks.
expected increase in the demands. We can notice also from Table 5 Other deviations in the water quantities (Qit , DWit and Vit ) will be
that the generated power is directly proportional to the electricity zero.
demand. Table 9 shows the power generated in the case of 5% deviation in
Due to variations in the renewable energy sources, the power electricity demand. As it is expected the cost is increased to reach
generated will deviate from the mean value. Table 6 shows the 50.9 million $/week (12% increase) due to deviations in the
generated power, available renewable power, power required to generated power. The water quantities are the same as the quan-
produce and store desalinated water, and the excess power due to tities shown in Table 5 but they resulted in a different cost. As
renewable sources. Negative excess power means that we have shown in the table, 5% deviations in electricity demand will result
excess power to be exploited. in approximately 4.6% in the generated power with no deviations in
The model is solved again after activating the production of the water quantities.
excess water, as in equation (21). The results are shown in Table 7. The effect of deviations in the renewable sources will have
The cost is reduced by 12% which is a considerable reduction. similar effect as deviations in the water demand. This is clear from
According to the optimal scheduling, the desalination plants equation (21) which exploit the excess renewable energy to pro-
may not produce water at all in some days as we have enough water duce and pump extra water (Xit) to the storage tanks. This will
stored in the tanks. As the system reaches steady state (day 4 in this result in a total deviations in Xit that can be estimated as

Table 7
Model output for mean values and excess water produced.

Day Qit (Thousand m3) DWit (Thousand m3) Vit (Thousand m3) Wit (Thousand m3) Xit (Thousand m3)

1 1236 1236 3829 1635 3829

2 1236 1236 2194 1635 0
3 677 677 4403 2194 4403
4 366 0 6648 2871 4749
5 0 0 4325 2871 548
6 366 0 6569 2871 4749
7 366 0 8813 2871 4749

Total Cost 45.8 million $/week.

 M. Al-Nory, M. El-Beltagy / Renewable Energy 72 (2014) 377e385
Table 9
Model output for 5% deviation in electricity demand.
Day Pt (MWh) sPt (MWh)
1 642,545 29,892
2 824,853 37,366
3 722,485 33,629
4 967,734 44,839
5 819,881 37,366
6 803,326 37,366
7 721,122 33,629
0 1
max
s B V C [1] Ibrahim H, Ilinca A, Perron J. Energy storage systemsdcharacteristics and
sXit y Q RE @P i max A
Ei EiV Vi
i
And the change in the cost can be estimated as
XX
sF CitV sXit
t i
For 25% deviations in the renewable energy in day 1
(REt 20,400 MWh), we will have total deviations in Xit around
1294 thousands m3 (33.8%) and the equivalent deviation in the cost
will be around 0.13 million dollars for the same day (2%).
7. Conclusion
We proposed an energy management approach based on a
mathematical model which takes into consideration the deviations
in the demands and the renewable energy. This allows for man-
aging the interruption of the supply from renewable energy in case
of the generation of water and power. Exploiting excess power from
renewable sources to store additional desalinated water was esti-
mated and implemented in the mathematical model. Our results
showed 12% cost reduction caused by the system ability to produce
excess water. The level of the excess water produced increased with
time as a result of the availability of the excess power from
renewable sources. When the maximum capacity of the storage
tanks is reached, the excess renewable power can be switched to
the grid to reduce the cost of the power production and switch back
again when the level of the stored water decreases. This was not
implemented in the current mathematical model but we plan
consider it in future work.
The model was used in estimating the variations in the different
system parameters; water quantities and the power generated. The
effect of deviations in the water demand, electricity demand and
renewable energy supply was carefully studied. Our results showed
an increase of 12% of the expected cost and 4.6% increase in the
power generation due to 5% deviation in electricity demand. We
also provided an analysis of the relationship between the renew-
able energy deviations and the produced water and the equivalent
cost deviations. Our results showed large deviations in the
renewable energy (e.g., 12%) would result in 33.8% deviations in the
excess water produced but only 2% increase in the total cost. Our
proposed model has proved to provide an optimal energy
385
management solution for the renewable energy sources when
coupled with desalination capacity.
(4.7%) Acknowledgment
(4.5%)
(4.7%) The rst author would like to thank King Fahd University of
(4.6%) Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, for
(4.6%)
(4.7%)
partially funding the research in this paper through the Center for
(4.7%) Clean Water and Clean Energy (CCWCE) at MIT and KFUPM under
the Ibn Khaldun Fellowship granted to the rst author.
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