Analysis and optimization of LT-MED system powered by an innovative CSP plant Peyman Talebbeydokhti a, ⁎, Andrea Cinocca a , Roberto Cipollone a , Barbara Morico b a Department of Industrial and Information Engineering and Economics, University of L'Aquila, L'Aquila, Italy b Processi Innovativi srl., Via Guido Polidoro 1, 67100 L'Aquila, Italy HIGHLIGHTS • An innovative parabolic trough CSP plant (CSP-DEC) has been developed. • CSP-DEC plant uses air as working fluid. • Matching of integrated LT-MED desali- nation processes with CSP-DEC plant is presented. • 0.195 kW m 3 ∙day of fresh water is the typical value of a conventional CSP plant inte- grated with LT-MED. • 0.062 kW m 3 ∙day of fresh water is the value obtained integrating CSP-DEC plant with LT-MED technology. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT abstract article info Article history: Received 29 October 2016 Received in revised form 27 February 2017 Accepted 11 March 2017 Available online xxxx The access to drinking water is an increasing problem in the World in many geographical areas. The desalination of seawater is the main source to provide fresh water. The thermal desalination systems such as Low Tempera- ture Multi-Effect Distillation (LT-MED) have gone through many stages of development to increase the energy efficiency of this system: this technology uses steam as part of its process to produce fresh water. Some improve- ments on the thermal desalination processes have resulted in less energy consumption. In order to further in- crease the energy efficiency in the desalination plants, renewable energy sources should be considered and evaluated in order to satisfy the worldwide demand of this technology. This paper presents an LT-MED system integrated with a novel Parabolic Trough Concentrated Solar Power (PT-CSP) plant whose reference cycle is called DEC, Discrete Ericsson Cycle which uses air as heat transfer fluid. This study explores the use of the waste heat in CSP-DEC plant to feed an LT-MED technology. It also discusses the plant layouts and performances of CSP-DEC + LT-MED plant. Because CSP-DEC can perform steam supply for LT-MED with less affecting on the electricity generation efficiency, CSP-DEC can optimize to lower energy loss than conventional CSP, while still producing larger quantity of fresh water. © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Concentrated solar power Heat transfer fluid Desalination LT-MED GOR 1. Introduction The global demand for supplying fresh water continues to increase and with it the problem of fresh water shortage that has continued to challenge in Middle East and North Africa (MENA). This is partially due to a rather low efficiency of water distribution and over-used fresh water sources, which in many cases does not reach present state of the art. It is also due to the continuous population growth and rapid economy developments of this region, which requires more water. There is already a significant gap between fresh water supply and demand today in MENA, which could be covered by seawater desalination based on renewable Desalination 413 (2017) 223–233 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: peyman.talebbeydokhti@graduate.univaq.it (P. Talebbeydokhti). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.desal.2017.03.019 0011-9164/© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Desalination journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/desal