Water. Desalination + reuse
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/640467
BUSINESS | 18 | Desalination & Water Reuse | February-March 2016 water treatment technologies in the sub continent. "I am very upbeat about India because their current account deficit is going to reduce because the oil price to the country just reduced 40% versus 18 months ago. And it's a country that has to develop yet it has significant water scarcity issues. It imports all of its oil so a reduction in oil price means it has more money than it had before. "It's not happening as fast as I would have wanted it to, but India's fundamentally going to be a very interesting market in desalination and water reuse – all of these." At the time of writing the Indian government has recently given the OK for a third desalination plant in the industrial city of Chennai with a fourth one on the cards. Reservoirs serving the city are at 10% capacity and the local supplier can only meet half the city's demand. Sharma suggests that the acute and growing need in Indian industry for new sources of water may offset any reluctance towards solutions based on new technologies. "They shouldn't be as conservative as they traditionally have been. But I can't stress enough: nobody's going to go for the sake of furthering technology, they're only going to do it if the economic and risk balance is right," says Sharma. Latin America has drawn attention in recent years and indeed the newly appointed IDA president, Emilio Gabbrielli has expressed his conviction that it is poised to be a leading region in the global desalination and reuse market. How does Aquatech view central and southern America? "It's an area that we've not traditionally been in, but it's exciting and we're studying it more. It's a market we're expecting to get into in the coming years." Sharma agrees that the mining sector in Latin America is a significant proposition. He says that despite the decline in copper and other metal production rates the water consumption per tonne increases as mines are depleted. "So it may be that the water intensity of the units is going to increase. And that does create an opportunity." Boundaries Moving away from geographical boundaries to technological ones: while the balance of Aquatech's recent projects a has been in membrane-based technologies, it retains a capacity for thermal projects. How does the company feel about the assertions from some quarters that thermal is dead? "It's tough to say. I think when you look at it, reverse osmosis (RO) has taken over from the thermal desalination technologies. We have been working very hard to prove the efficacy and the efficiency of Multiple Effect Distillation (MED) over Multiple Stage Flash (MSF) technology. "So it is a challenge. But I still see a role for MED. The whole concept of mating solar power generation with desalination to bring down the cost of operation lends itself well to MED. Based partly on evidence and partly on desire, I think there is a market for MED with renewables as the heat source rather than fossil." He says the prospects for thermal desalination without renewable heat are "challenging." The momentum of thermal desalination projects, he believes, has been maintained by a prevalent view that distillation was more reliable than membranes. "I think [thermal desalination] was running on a perception of reliability. But it seems that RO has overcome that hurdle. So being frank I don't see thermal continuing [without being allied with renewable energy]. You know why – there's no economic reason; it's the economics of a perceived reliability [over RO]. Cleaning up Regulation is arguably the chief driver behind the adoption of renewable energy in desalination. In a recent report, market analyst, Research and Markets, cited responses to tighter environmental regulation – including the River Gangees clean up – as a lead influence in firing up the wastewater reuse market. Aquatech has seen signs of this. "The two biggest focuses of the Chinese government have been environment and cracking down on corruption. This has been great for our business because in a way the two have, in the past, gone hand in hand. That's because corruption can lead to someone looking the other way and environmental regulation not being enforced. So China is an example of a market where environmental regulation has helped." Isn't environmental legislation a global market maker? "It's really driven by economics and water scarcity. Environmental regulation is there, but it can't be the backbone or the driver for our business. And I'll tell you why: one of the biggest emerging opportunities is that the pollution control boards and the environmental agencies look not just at best available technology but at the best economical available technology. They have to balance between protecting the environment and not putting undue pressure on industry." Sharma says Aquatech continues to work to improve the economics of zero liquid discharge (ZLD), because it could make the technology less of a financial burden when deployed to stay within regulatory limits. Otherwise regulators might be forced to rein in their requirements if the only alternative were to put people out of jobs. That undermines the technology's market – something Sharma says he has encountered. Enforcement "A lot of countries have all the environmental law but enforcement is a challenge. We supplied an industry in Asia where they had a lot of pressure from the local pollution control board. They couldn't invest the capital so we were trying to work with them on an outsourcing basis with a 20-year contract: we build the plant and we take a tariff. "If you look at the tariff we were going to take from them – on a very reasonable return – the water bill would've been an appreciable proportion of their yearly profit. What are they to do? Are the pollution control board going to make them close down and put 2,000 people out of work or are they going to find a way to work it out? They're going to find a way to work it out. "These are the sorts of challenges that are out there." Cost and conservatism remain obstacles but the company maintains its presence at the product and project levels. Days before and during the 2015 IDA World Congress last September, it unveiled: a contract win for a seawater desalination plant in the Oman combining MED and its patented fractional electrodeionization technology; completion of a seawater RO plant in the United Arab Emirates; and two RO-based technologies, one geared to recycling and reusing industrial wastewater for combination with ZLD, and one offering significant energy savings with respect to seawater desalination. Technologies that were not so long ago "a hobby – cool stuff " – are now the foundations for serious revenue says Sharma. Thermal renewed: MED by Aquatech at Sohar, Oman – prospects for thermal desalination without renewable heat are "challenging."