Water. desalination + reuse

REGIONS Cyprus desalination to end drought pledges president EUROPE Cyprus's sixth desalination plant has been inaugurated with a pledge from president Nicos Anastasiades that along with existing plants it would "guarantee that Cyprus will not face the problem of drought again." The €46 million (US$ 62 million) plant, located at Vassilikos, supplies 60,000 m 3 of drinking water a day to the to the island's Water Development Department's network. It was a turnkey venture between the Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC) and Israeli company, IDE Technologies. The deal was signed in 2009 and the plant should have been operational by February 2012 but an explosion at Mari naval base, adjacent to Vassilikos destroyed most of the work done until that point. Anastasiades said the government's water policies did not end with creating desalination units. He said it was promoting the use of other non-conventional methods such as the treatment of wastewater for irrigation of agricultural crops. Anastasiades said also the government was also promoting the planting of crops that consumed less water, and working on raising awareness of water conservation. "Cyprus could learn a lot from Israel on the importance of technology," he said. "We hope that soon we will have the opportunity to launch several other projects that will be undertaken jointly by various agencies, both public and private sector in Israel and Cyprus," he added. August-September 2014 | Desalination & Water Reuse | 33 | MIDDLE EAST ASIA & PACIFIC Gulf should look to solar power desalination expert says The Abu Dhabi Environment Agency has called on Arab Gulf states to shift their focus to solar and other renewable energy when considering power for desalination. Water-resources manager at the Environment Agency of Abu Dhabi, Dr Mohammed Dawoud, told an audience in the United Arab Emirates capital that countries in the region should consider powering desalination plants with solar and other renewable forms of energy to combat rising prices of fossil fuels and growing needs for potable water. "Oil and gas are limited resources ... we have to find another solution, we have to find another source," he added. Dawoud was addressing desalination experts at the Solar Desalination Forum in Abu Dhabi. "The capital cost is still high, and we are now looking to improve the cost of solar panels. By improving their efficiency in the future, this will dramatically decrease the cost," Dawoud said. He cited the agency's experience of running 30 small-scale solar powered desalination plants in Abu Dhabi since 2009. Costs at the 60 m 3 /d plants were US$ 3.7-4.20/m 3 compared with production costs of US$ 1.50-2.30/m 3 in utility plants Dawoud said. While the utility plants had better economies of scale the main cost difference was associated with the solar panels he said. Professor of practice at the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, Hassan El Banna Fath, said the intermittency of solar and other renewable power production had to be addressed before desalination plants could rely on renewables as a power source. The need for continuous power at desalination plants meant that investment was needed in power storage capacity before solar panels could be used mainstream. "The challenge lies in integrating a transient system with a non-transient system," he said. Earlier this year, Masdar said it was looking for technology companies to partner with it in three trial projects, which would run until the end of 2015. The aim is to build by 2020 a large-scale, commercially viable water-desalination plant powered by renewable energy. Indian city ponders two more new desalination plants The water agency for the Indian city of Chennai has submitted plans for two desalination plants to the state government for approval. The plants at Nemmeli and Perur about 40 km south of Chennai will be Chennai Metrowater's third and fourth. Once commissioned, the Perur facility will be the largest with a capacity to treat 400 Ml of seawater a day. The 150 Ml/d Nemmeli plant will be on the same site as a 100 Ml/d plant. Sources in Metrowater said more the plants were needed to meet the growing demand of the city. Low rainfall has caused reservoirs to dwindle and forced the water agency to reduce water supply from 810 Ml/d to 600 Ml/d for the past year. Chennai, with a population of 6.7 million, currently has an optimum requirement of about 1,200 Ml/d. This is expected to go up to 1,500 Ml/d by 2026, when the gap between demand and supply is expected to reach 700 Ml/d. Once issues including the funding pattern are decided, tenders for the two new plants will be floated in four or five months. It is understood that the entire project may be completed in three years. Qatar power firm to launch desalination plants Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa) is set to launch two giant desalination plants. The first plant, with a production capacity of 175 Ml/d, will be launched at Abu Fatas in May 2015. Kahramaa director, Ali Saif Al Malki, said the second desalination plant will be launched in 2017. The capacity would be 650 Ml/d. The plants will help Kahramaa to ensure smooth distribution of piped water for several days in the event of any unplanned outage in the production chain, the corporation said.

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