The last decade has seen a worldwide increase in the use of alternative energy sources, especially renewable energy (RE), including its application in desalination. In the past many experimental and pilot investigations were presented which allowed the costs and effectiveness of such integrated solutions to be estimated. The present review describes experience related to the use of solar thermal technologies (solar collector and concentrated solar power technologies), solar electricity (photovoltaic and concentrator photovoltaics), wind, hydroelectric (hydropower, tidal, wave and ocean thermal energy), biomass and geothermal energy (power and thermal) as well as hybrid systems. The costs relating to energy and desalinated water production are investigated in the case of various technological processes used in desalination. The main directions for development of the RE systems investigated are discussed and their advantages and disadvantages are assessed. Such a comprehensive review showed that the expansion of the effective use of RE sources is still hampered by several techno-economic aspects. The paper focuses on the main concerns of the need to optimise energy processes, especially by creating more energy-efficient and economically effective solutions, energy storage, energy recovery and the expansion of off-grid systems. As a result of the analysis it was concluded that, despite some disadvantages, the combining of RE with desalination processes requires further intensive research and demonstration units for longer term performance. Regulations to develop less energy-intensive desalination technologies are also still needed.

在过去十年中，全球替代能源特别是可再生能源（RE）的使用有所增加，包括其在海水淡化中的应用。过去，进行了许多实验和中试研究，可以估算这种集成解决方案的成本和有效性。本评论介绍了与使用太阳能热技术（太阳能收集器和集中式太阳能技术），太阳能（光伏和聚光光伏），风能，水力发电（水能，潮汐能，波浪能和海洋热能），生物质能和地热能有关的经验。能源（电力和热能）以及混合动力系统。在淡化过程中使用了各种技术过程的情况下，对与能源和淡化水生产相关的成本进行了调查。讨论了研究可再生能源系统的主要发展方向，并评估了它们的优缺点。这种全面的审查表明，可再生能源的有效利用的扩大仍然受到若干技术经济方面的阻碍。本文重点关注优化能源流程的主要关注点，特别是通过创建更具能源效率和经济效益的解决方案，能源存储，能源回收以及离网系统的扩展。分析的结论是，尽管有一些缺点，但将可再生能源与海水淡化工艺相结合仍需要进一步的深入研究和示范，以确保更长期的性能。仍然需要制定法规来开发耗能较低的海水淡化技术。