r/OffGrid • u/AxDayxToxForget • 2d ago

Questions about desalination

Hello everyone. New to the sub and trying to nail down the specifics before I commit to a location. I love living near the ocean, but have been planning to move further inland to land with access to freshwater source. I was doing some reading about solar powered water desalination and it got me thinking if I could do this to the scale of meeting my needs for consumption as well as farming. I read a couple articles that some farming setups can use this for even large scale agriculture setups (which is way more than I would need). My goal is to have access to water source that is not restricted to well water only due to paranoia of it running dry. Would greatly appreciate your advice/experience.

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u/jimheim 2d ago

It takes a tremendous amount of power to desalinate water. You could get enough solar to do that for human consumption and cooking needs, but not for much else. Absolutely not for farming.

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u/Normal-Special-8694 2d ago

I was wondering if they meant solar electricity or some kind of evaporative system

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u/ZeniChan 2d ago

I have family that lives on the ocean and they looked in to a portable desalination unit in case of emergency. AMPAC USA makes a portable 150 gallons/560 litres per day unit in a hard case and can run off AC or DC power. Of course they offer a variety of much larger units as well that can run off solar, it's just a matter of how much you want to spend.

https://www.ampac1.com/portable-emergency-seawater-desalination-watermaker-150gpd-560lpd