Alternative supplies of drinking water
The traditional sources of drinking water have been springs, rivers, channeled water, wells, rainwater tanks.
In the current scenario of drought due to climate change and the restricted use of existing water resources, it is necessary to study alternative solutions to provide us with drinking water.
We currently have the technical possibility to generate drinking water from the humidity of the air.
The water produced with atmospheric water generators has a quality controlled by the user himself and does not generate waste and, thanks to its efficiency, has a low energy cost.
The high quality of water from atmospheric generators is not intended for irrigation or industrial process water, which needs large volumes and at prices only possible in the network or collection in own wells.
The volume of water that can be achieved with an atmospheric water generator ranges from 50 to 4500 liters/day at full capacity and operating 24 hours a day.
Imatge d’una construcció agrícola a Tarragona amb cisterna pluvial seca
Domestic equipment produces 50 and 200 liters and can be used for different applications:
- direct consumption of drinking water
- store the surplus and use it for sanitary water (kitchen and bathroom)
- store the surplus and allocate it to efficient irrigation systems or drop by drop, discreetly or subsistence irrigation.
If small or medium volumes are sufficient, the atmospheric water generator is a good technological solution to consider in terms of autonomy and sustainability.
In any case, it is an alternative solution that can never be compared to the convenience of having piped water from the network, except if we decide to invest in top-of-the-range equipment to ensure volumes higher than those for consumption and to be able to store surpluses.
Before choosing any solution with atmospheric water generators, it will be necessary to measure exactly the daily water needs of the project, if it is necessary to store surpluses and assess whether the investment fits the available budget.
Photovoltaic energy
An atmospheric water generation equipment only needs two things to operate: air and electricity as a power source.
Therefore, if it is combined with a photovoltaic source, we can say that the generation cost of the liter once the equipment has been amortized will be practically zero.