Month: July 2013

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Energy Flows in a Desalination Plant

3 Comments on Energy Flows in a Desalination Plant

From a 2006 EU-funded research project called ADU-RES, here is a Sankey diagram from one of their reports (p. 24).

It features the energy flows of an autonomous desalination unit based on renewable energy. The plant (ITC’s Dessol) where they gathered the data is on the Spanish Canary Islands. “The system is conceived for small settlements (1-1500 inhabitants), since the scale/cost factor of the required investment/land restricts the capacity of production installed to 100 m³/day”.

energy_sankey_itcdessol

The figures represent annual average specific energies in kWh per m³ of desalinated water (or pumped seawater?).

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World Energy Flows 2012

Browsing through my bookmarks (plenty of Sankey diagrams there waiting to be shared with you) I wonder if I have previously presented this one.

This is a Sankey diagram of the global energy flows 2010 from the ‘World Energy Outlook 2012’ by OECD/IEA. Units are in Mtoe.

iea-world_energy_outlook_2012_fig4

via Resources Research but the original post could well be from Peak Oil (Kjell Aleklett: An analysis of World Energy Outlook 2012 as preparation for an interview with Science)

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French Négawatt Energy Scenarios

French Négawatt association is advocating a changed attitude towards energy use, expressed in the three words “sobriété – efficacité – renouvelable” (translates as frugalness/modesty, effciency, renewables). On their website they show Sankey diagrams for a 2010 and a 2050 energy scenario. A simplified and a detailed version is available for both years. Below is the detailed 2010 version.

sankey_negawatt_annee2010

(see a high-res image with magnifying/zoom feature here)

Flows are in TWh. As common in this type of energy flow Sankey diagram they show in a left-to-right orientation the primary energy sources, energy conversion, and final use. Additionally there is a sum for each of the columns that tells us the overall energy efficiency: In 2010, to provide 1908 TWh energy to the users required 3009 TWh of primary energy (1,58:1).

These Sankey diagrams in my opinion are very-well structured, information-rich and don’t lack a certain esthétique…