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Desalination (a Filtration + Separation publication) Volume 5 Issue 2
Seawater desalination:
Current trends
and challenges
C
hanging climate patterns, population growth pressures and the limited
availability of new and inexpensive fresh water supplies are shifting the
water industry’s attention. In an emerging trend, the world is reaching to
the ocean for fresh water. Nikolay Voutchkov from Water Globe Consulting
explains recent trends and explains his predictions for the future market.
Until recently, seawater desalination was or national desalination project programmes features which yield more fresh water per
limited to desert-climate dominated regions. in countries such as Spain, Australia, Israel, membrane element than at any time in the
Technological advances, and an associated Algeria and Singapore, aim to secure 20-25% recent history of this technology: higher
decrease in water production costs over the of their long-term drinking water needs with surface area, enhanced permeability and
past decade, have expanded its use in coastal desalinated seawater. denser membrane packing. Increasing active
areas traditionally supplied with fresh water membrane leaf surface area and permeability
resources. Today, desalination plants provide Technology advances allows it to gain significant productivity using
approximately 1% of the world’s drinking the same size (diameter) membrane element.
water supply and this percentage has been High productivity elements Active surface area of the membrane elements
increasing exponentially for the past ten years is typically increased by membrane production
A key factor which has contributed to the
[1], (See Figure 1). Seawater desalination is process automation, denser membrane leaf
dramatic decrease of seawater desalination
the fastest growing sector of this market. More packing and by adding membrane leafs within
costs over the past ten years is the
than US$10 billion of investment in the next the same element.
advancement of the SWRO membrane
five years is projected to add 10,510 MGD of
technology. Today’s high-productivity The total active surface area in a membrane
new desalination plant production capacity
membrane elements are designed with several element is also increased by increasing
worldwide. This capacity is expected to double
by the year 2020.
Two basic types of technologies have been New desalination capacity 1980 – 2009
widely used to separate salts from ocean 8
water: thermal evaporation and membrane Commissioned
separation. Over the past ten years, seawater 7
desalination using semi-permeable seawater Contracted
reverse osmosis (SWRO) membranes has
Capacity (million m3/d)
6
gained momentum and currently dominates
desalination markets outside of the Middle
5
Eastern region. Here, thermal evaporation
is still the desalination technology of choice
(mainly due to access to lower-cost fuel and 4
traditional use of facilities co-generating
power and water). 3
A clear recent trend in seawater desalination
is the construction of larger capacity plants,
2
which deliver an increasingly greater
portion of the fresh water supply of coastal 1
cities around the globe. Most of the large
desalination plants built between 2000 0
1980
1982
1984
1986
1988
1990
1992
1994
1996
1998
2000
2002
2004
2006
2008
2009
While this extreme cost disparity has a outfall structures which use the buoyancy usually 30-50% of the total desalination
number of site-specific reasons, the key of the warm power plant cooling water to plant construction costs, a unit labour rate
differences associated with the lowest and provide accelerated initial mixing and salinity increase of 20-100%, could trigger sometimes
highest-cost projects are related to five plume dissipation at very low cost. The intake unexpected and not frequently observed
main factors: and discharge facility costs for these plants are project cost increases.
usually less than 10% of the total desalination
Desalination site location plant costs. Risk allocation
In the case of the above-referenced Australian Without exception, the lowest cost
Phasing strategy
desalination plants, the project sites were desalination projects to date have been
selected with a significant weight on ‘not-in- The desalination projects with highest and delivered under turnkey BOOT contracts
my-back-yard’ considerations. This resulted lowest costs have a very distinctive difference where private sector developers share risks
in project locations situated at an overly in terms of project phasing strategy. Large with the public sector based on their ability
long distance (10-50 miles) from the points high-cost projects incorporate single intake to control and mitigate the respective project
of delivery of the desalinated water into the
water distribution system.
and discharge tunnel structures built for
the ultimate desalination plant capacity.
•
related risks.