Basic clean water services are generally unavailable in remote regions.

The techno-economic study

uses a small-scaled water treatment system capable of producing clean fresh water in conjunction
with solar thermal/photovoltaic applications, which is characterized by low initial cost, ease of
operation, and minimal maintenance requirements. Sunlight has long been recognized to kill
bacteria in water that can make people sick if they drink untreated water. However, depending on
the weather and temperature, this water cleaning process can take several hours. Scientists recently
discovered that exposing black carbon-dipped paper to sunlight can speed up the water purification
process.

Water treatment technologies

Water treatment procedures can be divided into two categories. Distillation, which is a physical
change in the state of water, is one form. It includes multi-stage flash distillation (MSF), multi-effect
distillation (MED), humidification dehumidification (HDH), and vapour compression distillation (VC),
among others. The other is membrane filtration, which includes electrodialysis (ED), electrodialysis
reversal (EDR), capacitive deionization (CDI), reverse osmosis (RO), and membrane distillation (MD).
There are also hybrid distillation processes that combine solar thermal as an auxiliary thermal energy
source and/or photovoltaic (PV) as an auxiliary power source.

Desalination, which separates mineral components from saline water to produce fresh water, is one
of the most established and commonly used water treatment processes. Commercial desalination
facilities, on the other hand, are designed for large-scale production of pure fresh water that
demands a lot of thermal energy (for distillation-related activities) or constant membrane
replacement (for filtration-related processes). Because the current focus is on remote villages with
fewer people, poor geographical accessibility, and less electricity, small-scale, stand-alone water
treatment systems with solar thermal applications, such as those schematically represented in Figure
1, were chosen for the following analysis.

Fig 1: Schematics of stand-alone small-scaled thermal/photovoltaic water treatment system.

The membrane-related water treatment system's frequent membrane replacement and regular
maintenance has a greater influence on water costs than the thermal-related water treatment
system. The systems are divided into three sections. The first part is a water treatment plant for
distilling raw feed water. The solar thermal field, which collects thermal energy to supply heat for
distillation, is the second part. The final component is the solar PV field, which will provide electricity
as an auxiliary power source for the entire system. The PV system can be utilized to provide
electricity in rural places where electrification levels are often low.

Several kinds of solar collectors, which are responsible for providing thermal energy to the water
treatment process, can be used from the available solar thermal technologies, including flat-plate
collectors, evacuated-tube collectors, concentrating collectors, salinity-gradient solar ponds, etc. The
auxiliary electrical power for operating the water treatment system can be supplied by integrating
PV in the system.

Although the cost of producing water is more than that of municipal water, it is comparable to the
cost of bottled water, which is the most readily available safe drinking water in remote areas. In the
future, additional appealing incentives such as a subsidy plan could be introduced to promote the
proposed notion in remote places. However, the proposed concept is limited to remote areas with
plenty of sunshine and plenty of water supplies, regardless of kind (sea water or polluted raw fresh
water).