• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.169-179
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• 2017

This study was conducted to supply information that can be utilized as data for desalination plant construction in the future by estimating unit cost of water production in the potential site of Incheon, Daesan, Yeosu, Busan, Ulsan and Sokcho in Korea. The production costs in Sokcho and Ulsan were similar to those of Busan and Yeosu. Those four sites showed better economic range due to low construction cost for intake facility compared to Incheon and Daesan. Although the salinity measured in the above 6 sites did not show perceptible effect on the production cost, the difference of seasonal seawater temperature needs to be considered due to the change of flux in reverse osmosis (RO) membrane. It turned out that the most critical parameters are the amortization in a year by the analysis of life cycle and the capacity of plant. Incheon and Daesan showed the difference of production cost up to 29% at the condition of amortization in 25 year, and up to 22% depending on plant capacity. However, the production cost in this study did not take into account of other indirect costs, therefore, this should be considered as the minimum cost.