Water. desalination + reuse

REGIONS Morocco seeks private investors for US$ 27 billion water plan Morocco has unveiled plans to let private capital take the lead in developing desalination and irrigation projects as part of a US$ 27 billion plan to ease the burden on its water resources. The country's National Water Plan provides for an additional 5 billion m³ in water resources by 2030 to maintain Morocco's annual water availability as the population increases according to water minster Charafat Afilal. The plan includes six new desalination plants in build-operate- transfer partnerships between private operators and the state utility Office National de l'Eau et l'Electricite (ONEE). ONEE signed a partnership in June for the first of the desalination plants with a consortium that included Spain's Abengoa and InfraMaroc, an affiliate of Morocco's biggest pension fund, Rabat-based Caisse de Depot et de Gestion. The 20-year agreement allows the group to sell to ONEE the water it produces from a 100,000 m³/d desalination unit currently under construction near Agadir. The plan will cost almost twice the total public investment budgeted for 2014, and, for financing, it will rely mostly on long-term concessions open to private operators Afilal said. November-December 2014 | Desalination & Water Reuse | 29 | MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA ASIA & PACIFIC Reverse osmosis could curb chronic kidney disease spread A recently commissioned reverse osmosis water purification plant donated by water treatment company Puritas will help to curb the spread of chronic kidney disease in the North Central Province of Sri Lanka according to the plant owner. Some 400,000 people in the region are currently affected with the disease. Puritas recently commissioned its plant in the village of Maithreepura, Padaviya to provide potable water. the company said the plant will "mitigate the spread of chronic kidney disease and uplift the socio- economic conditions of the people of the region." Males of 15-60 years old are the most vulnerable to the disease. Studies have been reported to show that providing purified water was key in eliminating it and reversing its effects. The new plant will benefit about 1,500 people in the Maithreepura village, the company said. Senegal utility mulls desalination to curb capital's shortages Senegal water utility, Senegalaise des Eaux (SDE), is planning investment in desalination to avoid repeats of last year's severe supply shortages in the the rapidly growing capital city, Dakar, according to the firm's chief executive Mamadou Dia. With financing from the Japan International Cooperation Agency ( JICA), Senegal will build a 100,000 m³/d desalination plant by 2021 - more than five times the current shortfall Dia said. He said also that private equity-owned SDE will also bid in a tender for a second 50,000 m³/d plant with private financing. "Senegal needs to diversify its water sources to secure supply and anticipate growing demand due to rapid urbanisation," he added. With no large supplies of water within more than 200km of Dakar, the city's structural water problems came to a head in September 2013 when 40% of the city went without water for two weeks following a mains burst. The water shortages of last year spurred criticism of the role of privately owned utilities like SDE which provides water to around half of Senegal's 13 million people, mainly in urban areas. Row erupts over standby costs at Sydney desalination plant A desalination industry leader has slammed political criticism of the cost of keeping a major Sydney facility on standby. Chief executive of the National Centre of Excellence in Desalination Australia, Neil Palmer said: "less than the cost of one cappuccino per week, per household," paid for "a key climate independent water source to last for the next 100 years." Palmer was responding to Green Party criticism that a seawater desalination plant constructed after the Australian drought in the early 2000s was costing taxpayers more than A$ 0.5 million (US$ 470,000) a year to lie idle. The US$ 1.7 billion plant, in Kurnell, was turned off in mid-2012 as Sydney's dams refilled once the rains returned. Water levels have remained high ever since so the desalination plant has never been switched back on at a cost of some US$ 370 million in "service fees" to stay on standby. Speaking to D&WR Palmer said: "The fixed costs of A$ 500,000 a day sound high but spread over Sydney's population of 4.5 million they work out to around 11 cents a day per person. This, he said, provided "insurance against any future water restrictions. "Everybody knows that there will be more droughts in future," Palmer said. Outspoken critic of the cost of the Kurnell plant, Greens MP John Kaye, called also for a decrease in the reservoir level that would trigger the restart of production at the facility from 70% of full capacity to 40%. Palmer argued that the level should be increased to 80%. He dismissed the proposal of a lower level as "based on the assumption that the desalination plant has two speeds; on or off," when a range of flows down to 25% were possible. "Running at low flow when the dams are at 80% will slow the rate of decline of the dams in much the same way as water restrictions would have previously. When the levels reduce to 70% the plant should be running at 100%," said Palmer.

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