wave
Insights from Veolia Water Technologies
RESOURCING THE WORLD
CREATING VALUE FOR INDUSTRY
California drought:
What we’re learning
Seawater sulfate
removal goes deep
The largest hybrid
desalination plant
in the world
Fighting resource
scarcity,
one battle at a time
Energy-efficient pilot
project with Masdar
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#2
Innovative
Water Solutions
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Through its innovative solutions, Veolia Water Technologies enables industry, local authorities
and citizens to optimize their use of resources for more efficient, environmentally-friendly and
socially responsible outcomes.
We understand the importance of increasing the value of water and we do so by supplying high
quality water, treating and reusing wastewater, producing and/or recovering energy, extracting
raw materials and capitalizing on valuable byproducts.
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wave
Insights from Veolia Water Technologies
Seawater desalination represents an increasingly important solution to the
rising water scarcity afflicting many of the world’s regions.
WORLD
LEADER
THROUGH
TECHNOLOGY
With more than 100 years of experience, numerous patented technologies
and extensive knowledge in desalination, Veolia Water Technologies is
the world leader in assisting municipalities and industries implement
desalination strategies.
Veolia’s desalination offering covers the whole spectrum of the market, from the
smallest to the largest production capacity. Veolia subsidiaries build seawater or
brackish water desalination plants using three types of solutions: Multiple Effect
Distillation (MED), Reverse Osmosis (RO) and Hybrid Desalination which combines
MED and RO to optimize electricity use, reducing production costs.
Veolia subsidiary SIDEM is the world leader in large-scale thermal desalination and,
through its commitment to in-house research & development, has been able to take
the lead and maintain a technological gap in the field of desalination plants based on
multiple effect technology. Some key references include Marafiq Jubail in Saudi Arabia,
Az Zour North in Kuwait, Ras Laffan C in Qatar and Al Hidd in Bahrain.
CREATING
VALUE
Veolia is also a major player in the RO membrane market, having built (and in some
cases operating) some of the largest SWRO desalination plants in the world including
Ashkelon in Israel, Sydney Kurnell and Gold Coast in Australia, Basrah P4 in Iraq, Sadara
Marafiq in Saudi Arabia, Az Zour South in Kuwait and Sur in Oman.
Veolia is the only company in the world to master both MED and RO to offer energyefficient hybrid desalination. This solution was implemented in 2010 at the Fujairah 2
plant in the UAE, producing 455,000 m³/d of desalinated water by MED and 136,000
m³/d by RO membranes.
In the industrial market, Veolia is able to cover a number of niche applications such as
Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) through its HPD evaporation & crystallization processes,
and sulfate reduction membrane systems for offshore oil & gas extraction.
Veolia, through its subsidiary SIDEM, is also an industry partner collaborating on
Masdar’s ambitious Renewable Energy Water Desalination Program which aims to
implement renewable energy-powered desalination plants in the UAE.
3
4
WAVE #02
06
CONTENTS
08
12
17
06
California
drought: what
we’re learning
12
Desalination
Dashboard
08
Seawater
Sulfate
Removal
Goes Deep
10
The largest
hybrid
desalination
plant in the
world
CONTENTS
5
14
20
10
22
14
Energy-efficient
pilot project
with Masdar
17
Fighting
resource scarity,
one battle at a
time
20
Beach wells for
large-scale RO
plant
22
Preserving
water reources
through
desalination
6
WAVE #02
California
drought: What
we’re learning
An opinion piece by Ed Pinero,
SVP Sustainability of Veolia North America
The severe drought currently underway in California has taught us many lessons in the
areas of planning, governance, behavior, awareness, policy, and of course the science
of the environment.
include the implications of drought. This
means understanding current and projected
demand and ensuring that through efficiency,
storage, and reuse, there is enough water to
go around.
Awareness
needs to be
increased
W
hile water is scarce and in highdemand in California right now,
drought and water shortages are not new
to the state. What’s unique now is that the
drought coincides with an expanding state
economy that could be impacted.
Droughts are inevitable and natural; and
they’re not solely due to manmade climate
change. So the solution lies in preparing for
drought, not simply hoping it doesn’t happen.
Water resource strategic planning has to
“Enough water to go around” affects many
sectors – not just drinking water needs,
which actually represent less than 10 percent
of freshwater use. Food production, energy
generation and industry account for the
rest. So, when water is short, there must be
governance and policy mechanisms in place
to prioritize allocations to all these sectors.
This is not easy because some of these sectors
have significant impact on quality of life and
the economy. California’s economy is the
seventh-largest in the world, so imagine the
implications of curtailing agriculture and food
protection in the state. Or imagine limiting
industry usage in Silicon Valley, home to a very
water-intensive industry.
There are two lessons I think are most
important. One is that awareness needs
RESOURCING THE WORLD
to be increased so people understand the
true urgency around droughts and growth.
Having to reduce lawn watering or car
washing is not really a crisis or sacrifice; it’s
an inconvenience. Look at Sao Paulo, Brazil,
where drought has resulted in interruptions
in basic water supply to homes and major
disruptions in commerce. The messaging
and recommendations have to be more
aggressive about more wholesale efficiency
improvements. The recent commitment by
farmers to use less water is very encouraging.
Secondly, planning has to be long term and
strategic, not reactionary. California ironically
sits adjacent to one of the largest bodies of
water in the world, the Pacific Ocean, but
it is salty. California also generates much
wastewater due to its population. But we
know droughts are coming and without
policies, infrastructure and mechanisms to
allow wider scale use of desalination and
reuse of treated water, these resources go
untapped. Establishing the governance and
infrastructure to do this takes time. It cannot
be built overnight, especially in the middle of
the drought when everyone is in panic mode.
Sustainability is the balance of
environmental, economic and societal needs.
Focusing on only one or two of these aspects
can lead to trouble. Contrast this situation
to Australia, another strong economy in a
drought and water shortage-prone area.
What has made them successful is their
strategic and long-term embracing of reuse
and desalination as sustainable solutions.
7
Planning has
to be long term
and strategic,
not reactionary
8
WAVE #02
Seawater
sulfate
removal
goes deep
CREATING VALUE FOR INDUSTRY
A
mong the major challenges in the
increasingly complex environment
of offshore oil systems are the space and
weight limitations on what the industry
calls “topsides:” oil platforms and Floating
Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO)
units. With the need to find room for items
such as oil and gas processing facilities, power
generation utilities, crew living quarters,
safety and drilling equipment, the trend in
the industry is to look to subsea production
systems in which the equipment can be
installed under water, on the seabed.
One such process that has been shown to
be suitable to make the underwater dive
is the technology for removing sulfates
from seawater, prior to injection into the oil
reservoir. The seawater is injected to maintain
the pressure in the reservoir, a process
known as “waterflooding,” to increase the
oil-production rate and, ultimately, the oil
recovery.
Sulfate removal is crucial as a scale-control
measure in reservoirs containing high
levels of barium or calcium to prevent any
precipitation or mineral deposition as well
as to prevent well souring caused by sulfatereducing bacteria. Seawater sulfate removal
units using specialized nanofiltration (NF)
membrane systems are widely deployed
today on topsides.
9
SPRINGS® (Subsea Process and Injection Gear
for Seawater) is the underwater membrane
solution for sulfate removal, the first time
the treatment has been applied in subsea
processing. The technology, developed
through a joint research program between
Total, Saipem and Veolia, has completed a
successful subsea deep-water test program
and is being readied for full-scale deployment.
In addition to reducing topsides space and
weight demands, major advantages offered
by SPRINGS® include simplification of the pretreatment and greater flexibility in the water
injection pattern for improved sweeping of
the reservoir. Pretreatment is simplified as the
higher-quality water from the ocean depths
reduces the filtration requirement upstream
of the membranes. Placing a dedicated
SPRINGS® module local to each injection
well allows the injection water quality and
capacity to be matched to the needs of the
reservoir for optimal sweeping.
The standard SPRINGS® module has a
capacity to treat up to 60,000 barrels
of seawater per day. Initial applications
are expected to occur either on existing
production facilities where a subsea solution
may be the only technically or financially
viable option for water injection, or on new
developments that require long tie-backs to
small, remote oil fields for which a subsea
solution may be the best economic option.
SPRINGS®
Underwater
membrane
solution for
sulfate removal
10
WAVE #02
The largest
hybrid
desalination
plant in the
world
F
The most
energy-efficient
desalination
solution
ujairah 2 is the largest hybrid
desalination plant in the world, with
a capacity equivalent to 595,000 m3/day of
potable water. The hybrid desalination plant
is exceptional not only due to its size but also
because it combines the two technologies,
Multiple Effect Distillation (MED) and
Reverse Osmosis (RO), to which is added a
pretreatment Dissolved Air Flotation (DAF)
system. This state-of-the-art combination
has proven to be a solution which meets
the requirement for a constant, high quality
potable water output, despite vast seasonal
variations in the power output as well as
algae bloom periods.
The desalination plant is linked to a 2,000
MW power plant. The high drinking
water demand in the UAE does not vary
substantially with the seasons whereas
the power demand does: during summer,
the power demand is high due to the use
of air-conditioning while it is lower during
the winter months. Therefore, an innovative
hybrid solution including MED and RO was
called for to best match the demands from
a cost as well as a performance perspective.
The hybrid design is the most energy-efficient
solution for production of desalinated water
today.
The MED system composes the first section
of the desalination plant and is the largest
system of the two. It includes 12 MED units
that are driven using steam extracted from
the two condensing steam turbines and
from the exhaust of the back pressure steam
turbine. This provides maximum output from
the MED units during the summer.
The second part of the desalination plant
is based on RO and is driven by power
rather than steam hence it can be operated
independently of steam output and be used
during winter to maintain water output when
power demand is low.
RESOURCING THE WORLD
Spidflow™: a new
generation of rapid flotation
11
technology
spotlight
Red-tide events are often a problem in the region and as such, the leading-edge technical solution put in place at Fujairah 2 also features an innovative pretreatment solution upstream of the RO system: Veolia’s Spidflow™ Dissolved Air Flotation (DAF).
Clarification of water containing low density particles is a delicate step, especially during episodes of fast algae growth.
Spidflow specifically fits seawater desalination pretreatment as an upstream step of a reverse
osmosis membrane treatment chain. It is especially efficient during red-tide algal bloom periods and provides unequalled water treatment efficiency by eliminating over 99% of algae.
The efficiency was confirmed during strong algae blooms in February 2011 and March 2013,
when Fujairah 2 was able to maintain its daily production capacity while other plants in the
region were forced to shut down or greatly reduce their production.
12
WAVE #02
10 countries combine
60% of world’s
Over
75% of the earth’s
potable water resources
surface is covered in water:
97% is seawater
and only 3%
is fresh water
Installed capacities have
increased dramatically
since the first desalination
technologies appeared
in the 60’s, amounting
74.7 million
m³/d today
55% is used by utilities
while 43% goes to cover
to
1 billion people live
in regions exposed to
significant water scarcity
representing
22% of the world's GDP
industrial needs
in desalination:
12.9 million
m3/d
of contracted capacity
108 countries,
representing 17%
in
of the world’s capacity
Experts estimate that these
45%
of the GDP in 2050
zones will represent
2,200 desalination
units installed
There are
2 main
technologies to produce
potable water from
seawater:
Hybrid
solutions combine
advantages
of both
technologies
Veolia is the global leader
Thermal technologies
(distillation):
30%
Membrane technologies
(reverse osmosis):
65%
RESOURCING THE WORLD
Veolia Desalination Flagships
Capacity
in MLD
Operation
Start
Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia
800
2010
Az Zour North
IWPP
Kuwait
486
2016
Al Fujairah 2
IWPP
United Arab Emirates
/ Fujairah
455
2010
Ras Laffan C
IWPP
Qatar
286
2010
Al Hidd IWPP
Bahrain
272
2007
Al Taweelah A1
United Arab Emirates
/ Abu Dhabi
240
2002
Zawai Derna &
Sussa
Libya
160
2009
Layyah D12/D13
United Arab Emirates
/ Sharjah
77
2006 / 2007
Ras Al Kaimah
United Arab Emirates
/ Ajman
68
2005
RO Plant
Country
Capacity
in MLD
Operation
Start
Ashkelon
Israel
392*
2005 / 2010
Sydney Kurnell
Australia
250
2010
Basrah P4
Iraq
199
2016
Sadara Marafiq,
Jubail
Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia
179
2015
Al Fujairah 2
United Arab Emirates
136
2010
Az Zour South
Kuwait
136
2014
Sur
Oman
128**
2009/2016
Gold Coast
Australia
125
2010
97
2013
MED Plant
Country
Marafiq IWPP,
Jubail
Campo de Dalías Spain
* 2010 Latest expansion ** 2016 Latest expansion
13
14
WAVE #02
Energy-efficient
pilot project
with Masdar
L
ocated 30 kilometers from Abu Dhabi
in the midst of an inhospitable desert,
Masdar City aims to be the world’s first
sustainable “smart city”, with no carbon
footprint. Construction in the United Arab
Emirates began in 2008 and is scheduled for
completion in 2025. Solar energy and smart
buildings will be used to meet Masdar City’s
goal of “zero waste, zero carbon.”
Masdar has selected Veolia, through its
desalination specialist SIDEM, as an industry
partner to collaborate on the ambitious
Renewable Energy Water Desalination
Program launched early 2013. The pilot
program aims to test and develop advanced,
energy-efficient seawater desalination
technologies suitable to be powered by
renewable energy sources. The long-term goal
of the program is to implement renewable
energy-powered desalination plants in the
UAE.
As technology partners, Veolia and Masdar
are sharing the costs to build and operate a
pilot plant - the first step of this partnership
- that will have the same characteristics as
future large scale innovative and low energy
consumption desalination plants.
Henri Casalis is SIDEM’s Project Manager at
Masdar. We asked him about the project, the
progress made and the future steps.
Can you briefly outline the background
behind the SIDEM-Veolia project in Abu Dhabi
as part of the Masdar Renewable Energy
Seawater Desalination Program?
Veolia has always been very active in
developing new technologies in all disciplines
of water treatment. As a major player in
desalination for the past several decades,
using various processes, Veolia is very involved
in the coming challenges of desalination
which are linked to environmental protection
and energy savings. These are two major
components that still have to be improved
for the ever-growing desalination demand in
water-scarce regions.
Our commitment to "Resourcing the World"
drives our innovations so when we found out
RESOURCING THE WORLD
about
Masdar’s bid for
the development of
new desalination technologies, we
applied without hesitation as we were eager
to implement ongoing developments on
several process parts.
The project is a so-called pilot plant, which
is in fact the exact replica of a large-scale
plant, able to produce potable water with
the same operation constraints as a large
plant. This means that we have to build a
small desalination plant that we will operate
for more than one year to test its reliability
and availability and also to further test the
reactions of the plant at its operation limits;
the aim being to test the plant beyond
the expected operation parameters we
are confident with today. It is therefore an
ambitious request by Masdar, who expects
this program to lead to the discovery of new
technologies, pushing them to their operation
limits.
What energy-efficient or renewable-energy
based desalination technology is being
developed and used as part of the project?
Desalination requires a lot of energy but
thankfully, we have come a long way since the
early days of desalination and today, around
95% of this energy can be recovered. Various
recovery technologies currently coexist, and
we will implement a new one that has a
better efficiency as it combines advantages of
the existing ones.
Renewable energy will not be implemented
on this program but it can easily be done
in the
future. It has
to be kept in mind that
the use of renewable energy
doesn’t necessarily have to be by means
of a dedicated power plant combined with
a desalination plant: in the future it is more
likely to be one or several renewable energy
power plants, with production capacities
in proportion with the energy demand,
connected on the general power grid.
The obvious drawback of solar and wind
power is that they cannot feed the plant on a
continuous basis, requiring an extra-feeding
from the grid, which is why these renewable
power plants have to be connected to the grid
and not directly to the desalination plant’s
substation.
Another challenge for solar panel plants will
be to figure out how to avoid dust affecting
the capacity of the panels, as unfortunately
dust goes with dry and sunny areas. Dust
is mainly removed manually today, which
requires manpower; low energy and
automatic dust removal systems are still to
be developed for panels. Wind farms do not
have this drawback but do represent a noise
nuisance even when installed few kilometers
away from houses, which implies wind farms
can only be built in remote areas, compared to
solar panel.
15
16
WAVE #02
In your view, what are the main advantages
of the technology you are testing?
The technologies we will implement are
new but not experimental, in the sense that
we know they will work with a high level of
reliability and will not require an additional
5 to 10 years to have them implemented
on large-scale plants. We consider they can
almost be implemented on large-scale plants
today.
These technologies all converge to better
power efficiency and at the same time, to
extended lifetime of the plant.
Desalination membranes are sensitive to
water quality and their clogging is not as easy
to handle as many want to believe, especially
in regions where the sea water is warm and
rich in organic matters. We refuse to fall into
the trend of believing that pretreatment
membranes solve any problem just because
their filtering mesh is very small. Treating
water is not just about removing particles: the
clogging of RO membranes is linked to organic
matters and bacteria that pass through
the pretreatment membranes and develop
colonies downstream. Classical technologies
do not have this drawback even if perceived
as less sophisticated; sophistication does not
always go with improvement. What progress have you made on the project
so far? And, what is next?
The first components were delivered to the
site in February and assembly time was
quite short thanks to a modular design.
Construction was completed at the end of
April and after pretreatment commissioning,
the plant was started-up at the end of June.
Today, the plant is producing potable water!
We are currently undertaking a reliability
and optimization period prior to starting
the Operations phase of the project which
will take place over the next 9 months. We
will demonstrate on the Pilot Plant scale
what a large plant could achieve in terms of
availability and main performances.
The pretreatment filtration is maintaining a
good Silt Density Index at all times to protect
our Reverse Osmosis membranes while the
intervals between filter backwashes are kept
very large.
Following the Operations phase will be a
Research and Development period during
which we will use all the opportunities
given by our design to push the limits of our
system and try to reach the very best energy
consumption and plant recovery possible, and
learn from it.
Looking ahead, what do you think are the
prospects for the use of energy-efficient
and renewable energy-based desalination
technology across the Middle East?
The Gulf countries have long understood the
necessary use of renewable energy, especially
that from the sun which is a major resource
for them. They are actually very proactive
in this field and are pushing the industry
to develop better, larger and more reliable
units. So our natural prospects for renewable
energies are first in the Gulf and also in other
areas of the world where water scarcity is
combined with a lot of sun and/or wind. As
far as our new technologies are concerned
we are ready to implement them on all our
desalination plants.
CREATING VALUE FOR INDUSTRY
Fighting resource
scarcity,
one battle at a time
B
ig problems call for big ambitions.
With the planet confronted by
global warming, world hunger, exploding
urbanization and resource scarcity, Veolia’s
newly adopted mission description,
“Resourcing the World,” seems appropriately
scaled.
The global tagline reflects the company’s
determination to help break society’s resource
consumption dependency and switch to a
sustainable use-and-recover approach. The
performance-improving solutions Veolia
delivers to its customers provide access to
needed resources while at the same time
preserving and replenishing them.
Not that the company plans to respond to
all of the planet’s challenges all at once.
“Rethinking our relationship with resources
and creating new, more efficient, better
balanced and more sustainable
growth models is an ongoing
commitment,” says Veolia
Water Technologies
Senior Executive Vice
President, Klaus
Andersen. “It’s a
campaign we fight
one battle at a time,
project by project,
delivering solutions
that can then be
leveraged throughout
the world.”
17
18
WAVE #02
Enabling sustainable oilfield
expansion
In the San Ardo Field in Monterey County,
California, Chevron needed a solution for
its water needs to enable increased oil
production. The 2,500-acre field is the 13th
largest oil field in the state, with an estimated
ultimate oil recovery of 530 million barrels.
Chevron’s oil production had been declining
in recent years, due to limited capacity
for disposing of the produced water that
comes to the surface as part of the oil and
gas extraction process. The challenge for
producing the remaining heavy oil was to
remove the excess water from the reservoir,
which can range from 10 to 20 times the oil
production rate.
On the front lines: water scarcity
The plant
is designed
to process
66,700 barrels per
day of produced
water
The combination of resource stewardship
with performance improvement is visible
in Veolia’s ability to help fulfill the needs
of industrial customers for one of the
earth’s vital but increasingly stressed
resources: water.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development estimates that 1.5 billion
people today live in areas seriously affected
by water scarcity with that number projected
to increase to almost 4 billion by 2050, absent
adoption of more sustainable practices.
As water is increasingly a global
environmental and humanitarian challenge,
access and use of the resource is becoming
a major issue for many industrial customers.
Veolia’s ability to deliver sustainable solutions
that protect water resources is a real
competitiveness driver.
This is a priority particularly evident in the
dynamic energy area, as illustrated through
some recently completed projects.
Working with Chevron, Veolia designed
and built a new membrane-based water
desalination facility to allow a portion of the
produced water to be treated and discharged
to a shallow fresh water aquifer (pictured left).
The project, commissioned in October 2007,
was the first produced water desalination
facility in the world to use Veolia’s OPUS®
technology, which has proven to be a reliable
and robust process for successfully treating
produced water for surface discharge. OPUS®
combines high-rate chemical softening, with
filtration, ion exchange and reverse osmosis.
The plant is designed to process 66,700 barrels
per day of produced water with a recovery
factor of 75%, translating into an effluent
treated water rate of 50,000 barrels per day.
The multiple-treatment process is effective
in removing contaminants to meet the
requirements for beneficial reuse discharge
to aquifer recharge basins via post-treatment
constructed wetlands.
The implementation of the OPUS® water
reclamation technology / desalination
allowed Chevron to meet its water needs with
recycled water and expand its current area
of steam-enhanced production into idled,
CREATING VALUE FOR INDUSTRY
previously developed portions of the field.
In more recent development for oil and
gas application, OPUS® II streamlines
pretreatment through the use of CeraMem®
ceramic membranes to improve oil removal.
Helping to ensure clean oil sands
development
In Alberta’s Athabasca region, Veolia is
helping independent oil and gas exploration
production company Devon Energy
Corporation conserve water resources and
reduce the footprint of producing oil from
oil sands. Veolia’s Steam Assisted Gravity
Drainage (SAGD) is enabling Devon to produce
up to 35,000 barrels per day of bitumen at
its Jackfish 2 Project, where total recoverable
reserves are estimated at over 300 million
barrels.
Devon needed a solution that is robust,
compact, easy to install and simple to
maintain to separate oil and gas from water
and other waste. Veolia’s response included
the design, engineering, fabrication and
supply of a full size AUTOFLOT® Model
AHP280 Induced Gas Flotation (ISF) unit.
The unit separates oil from produced water
or other oily water streams. Hydrophobic
particles attaches to the small gas bubbles
added into a mixture of oil, fine solids and
water. These particles float to the surface
as a froth and are skimmed into a launder.
The introduction of gas is performed by an
eductor, which uses effluent as its motive
fluid, provided by one of the two recirculation
pumps located on a companion skid package.
With the use of Veolia’s proprietary filtering
and separating technology, it is helping
improve access to resources by Devon in
recycling and reusing the water required in
the SAGD process. Based upon the successful
integration of the ISF on Jackfish 2, Devon also
asked Veolia to provide a second ISF unit for its
Jackfish 3 project.
Long-running commitment
While projects such as these underline how
technology solutions can help drive new
behaviors, it’s not a new role for Veolia.
For over 160 years, Veolia has been helping
cities and industries worldwide manage,
optimize and make the most of their water
resources. ‘Resourcing the World’ simply
captures this commitment and better
communicates the company’s determination
to be part of the solution to the natural
resource challenges it faces.
A mission the company is obviously tackling
with passion and enthusiasm...one battle at a
time.
19
OPUS® II
streamlines
pretreatment through
the use of CeraMem®
ceramic membranes
to improve oil
removal.
20
WAVE #02
Beach wells
for large-scale
RO plant
D
Natural filtration
provided by beach
well catchment
system
esalination of seawater provides a viable
solution when faced with potable water
scarcity. Thanks to innovative technologies,
desalination has become increasingly more
ecologically and economically efficient.
Limited resources and growing needs for
water have triggered an increased focus on
water conservation in the Sultanate of Oman.
The Sur Desalination Plant has put much
effort into reducing the environmental impact
of the desalination process. To that end, two
avenues were selected  an innovative water
intake based on beach wells and an energy
recuperation and reuse system through
Energy Recovery Devices (ERD).
Project background
In 2007, Veolia was awarded the contract to
Build, Own and Operate Sur’s Desalination
plant, the first independent desalination
project in Oman. Work and commissioning
were completed in January 2010 and Veolia has
been operating the plant since, on a 20-year
contract, providing 80,000 m3/d of drinking
water to the region’s 350,000 inhabitants.
In 2014, Veolia in partnership with the
national Oman Power and Water Procurement
Company (OPWP) celebrated the extension of
the contract and announced that an additional
51,000 m3/d would be added to the existing
capacity, bringing the total to 131,000 m3/d.
RESOURCING THE WORLD
An innovative approach
Sur is the world’s biggest RO plant connected
to beach wells, an innovative water intake
system based on natural filtration. Rather
than pumping water from the sea through
open intake pipes, 80-meter deep beach wells
pump it directly onshore from the ground.
The natural sand filtration allows for a lighter
pretreatment and provides a better water
quality: the highly-flexible pumping design
ensures constant salinity, low temperature
variation and low pH, making for a very stable
quality of seawater, even during red-tide
algal bloom periods or oil and hydrocarbons
spillage in the area.
The durability of the RO membranes is
optimized thanks to very low
colloidal clogging. The highquality raw seawater
also allows for much
lower pretreatment
process installation
costs as well as a
decrease of 64% in
the total chemical
consumption for
this treatment
step.
21
The high-pressure pumps used in the reverse
osmosis process tend to require a lot of
energy, so reducing the energy consumption
of the plant was a key requirement at Sur.
To optimize and reduce the final product price
and the impact on the environment, highlyefficient Energy Recovery Devices (ERD) were
integrated in the RO building. With 24 energy
recovery facilities, the DWEER ERD system
allows a high recovery grade of 97% of the
energy, and vibrations and noise diminution
below 85 DB.
One of the main challenges at Sur was to
reduce the environmental impact of the
desalination process. Veolia provided an
innovative solution covering the
whole production cycle,
from water intake to the
reduction of energy
consumption and
recuperation.
High
performance
Energy
Recovery Devices
22
WAVE #02
L
Preserving
water
resources
through
desalination
ocated in Almeria, Spain, the Campo
Dalias reverse osmosis desalination plant
was completed in November 2014. With a
nominal production capacity in the current
phase of 30 Hm3/year and a daily production
rate of 97,200 m3, it is the fifth largest facility of
its kind in Spain.
Reduces water
collection from
aquifers to comply
with Spain’s
sustainability
commitment
Designed and built by Veolia Water Technologies’
Spanish office as part of a joint venture, the
Campo Dalias desalination facility is part of
a national desalination program launched
by the Spanish Ministry for Agriculture, Food
and Environment, called “Programa Agua”.
This program, promoted by state owned
company ACUAMED, aims to drive a water
policy reorientation that takes advantage of
available water resources in order to fight
water shortages and drought conditions in the
southeast of the country.
The Campo Dalias treatment line is comprised of
an open water intake from Mediterranean Sea
via submarine pipe, double-stage multimedia
pressure filtration and a double-pass reverse
osmosis process. This first pass consists of six
reverse osmosis skids equipped with an Energy
Recovery System (ERS) in the form of isobaric
chambers. This allows for recovery of up to 95%
of the brine pressure which is then transferred
to the feed in order to reduce pumping
requirements. The brine of the first pass is
discharged back to the sea via submarine pipe.
The second pass reverse osmosis, also comprised
of six skids, is dedicated toward reducing the
boron concentration in the permeate water in
order to comply with irrigation requirements.
The desalinated water is then post-treated
through remineralization and an added
final disinfection step ensures the product
water reaches the delivery points in suitable
conditions for both human consumption
and irrigation. The product water distribution
network is also part of the work scope which
includes the execution of a product water
pumping station, a 4.5 km pressure pipeline,
an elevated storage tank and a 40 km gravity
distribution network which delivers the
product water to end users.
The treated water is used for both irrigation
and drinking water applications, contributing
to reducing water collection from aquifers thus
allowing for natural regeneration and complying
with the Spanish Ministry of Environment’s
water sustainability commitment.
Commissioning of the plant is ongoing until
October 2015 with O&M works expected to
come into force in November. From then, Veolia
Water Technologies will operate the Campo
Dalias plant for 15 years.
Publication Director: Axel Ensinger
Chief editor: Clément Leveaux
Coordination: Manon Painchaud, Séverine Le Bideau
Contributors to this issue: Dr. Mourad Ben Boudinar, Henri Casalis, William Mengebier, Manon Painchaud, Ed Pinero
Design: Veolia Water Technologies Graphic Design Team
Photo credits: Veolia photo library / Christophe Besson / Christophe Majani d’Inguimbert /
Stephane Lavoue / Jean-Francois Pellegry / Imag’in / R. Secco / Fotolia
Cover: Veolia photo library / Stephane Lavoue
Printing: AlphaGraphics
09/2015
@VeoliaWaterTech •
Veolia Water Technologies
www.veoliawatertechnologies.com