As anyone who lives in arid regions of Asia Pacific knows, water shortages have become an increasingly frequent and troubling fact of life. The area's spiraling population growth, economic development and urbanisation have multiplied the demand for fresh water, straining existing fresh water resources.
Fortunately, a variety of cost-effective desalination technologies have emerged in tandem with the region's water needs. Over the past decade, IDE Technologies, the desalination industry's technology leader, has deployed some of the APAC region's largest and most advanced desalination plants.
Tianjin SDIC - China's Largest Desalination Plant
Tianjin SDIC is a state-of-the-art electric plant that leverages IDE's unique desalination technologies to narrow its dependence upon external fresh water resources.
The plant uses IDE MED (Multi-Effect Distillation) units to create the highly-pure water needed in its steam boilers from the region's plentiful seawater, and powers the units with the waste heat generated by the electricity plant, an advantage that reduces the plant's desalination costs while improving its environmental profiles. So far, IDE has successfully deployed four MED units with a total capacity of 100,000 m3/day, and has been chosen to deploy four additional units, currently under construction (to be completed during 2012), doubling the capacity to 200,000 m3/day.
Reliance Industries, desalination in india
The Reliance Group is India's largest private sector enterprise, and its petroleum refinery is one of the world's largest refinery complexes. From 1998-2007, Reliance installed nine IDE MED desalination units with a total capacity of 160,000 m3/day, to provide high-quality feed water for its boilers and drinking water for local residents.
