Desalination Can Beat Out Batteries for Excess Energy

This is an interesting proposal! Food for thought!

Desalination might be one of the best uses of solar power!

"In many arid regions around the world, desalination of saltwater is an important means to acquire drinking water. One of the most common desalination techniques is through a process called reverse osmosis. However, the pumps used for reverse osmosis desalination require immense amounts of electricity—which raises questions on how to ensure this process is completed in an economical and energy-efficient way. ...
In some situations, it may even be more financially and energy efficient to put that generated energy toward desalination rather than store it in batteries for use later. Money can be saved by only producing freshwater when renewable energy production is high. ..."

From the abstract:

"We consider a power system whose electric demand pertaining to freshwater production is high (high freshwater electric demand), as in the Middle East, and investigate the tradeoff of storing freshwater in tanks versus storing electricity in batteries at the day-ahead operation stage. Both storing freshwater and storing electricity increase the actual electric demand at valley hours and decrease it at peak hours, which is generally beneficial in term of cost and reliability. But, to what extent? We analyze this question considering three power systems with different generation-mix configurations, i.e., a thermal-dominated mix, and a renewable-dominated one, and a fully renewable one. These generation-mix configurations are inspired by how power systems may evolve in different countries in the Middle East. Renewable production uncertainty is compactly modeled using chance constraints. We draw conclusions on how both storage facilities (freshwater and electricity) complement each other to render an optimal operation of the power system."

Desalination Can Beat Out Batteries for Excess Energy - IEEE Spectrum Producing water could be more efficient than storing energy for later

Storing freshwater versus storing electricity in power systems with high freshwater electric demand (open access)