Energy Recovery Inc. will supply energy recovery devices for an SWRO desalination project in Australia. IDE Technologies awarded the San Leandro, California, company the contract for the 140,000 m3/day facility which adds process and drinking water for a large mine operation. IDE will build the plant, scheduled for completion in 2009, utilizing ERI’s PX Pressure Exchanger® (PX®) technology as the energy recovery solution.
IDE also recently chose ERI’s technology for the 274,000 m3/day Hadera SWRO Desalination Plant (which may be expanded to 130,000 million m3/day) in Israel between Tel Aviv and Haifa, as well as an expansion at its 54,000 m3/day SWRO desalination plant located in Larnaca, Cyprus, to 64,000 m3/day. The Hadera facility will be the world’s largest such plant when it starts up in 2010.
In Africa, it was announced in September the Mostaganem SWRO Desalination Plant, under construction east of Oran in the western seaside region of Algeria, with a total capacity of 200,000 m3/day, will employ ERI technology. That facility, being built by UTE Mostaganem, a consortium consisting of Inima (Grupo OHL) and Aqualia (Grupo FCC) of Spain, will be able to supply drinking water to a population of over one million people when complete in 2009. The Mostaganem plant will include 240 PX-220 devices arranged in 16 trains of 15 units each. Each device will save about 80 kW for a total energy savings of over 19 mW.
In 2007, ERI systems also were engaged for a 55,000 m3/day desalination plant for the Trekkopje Uranium project in Namibia, South Africa, projected to supply 20 million m3 of water a year to the mine.
Consortium builds sludge treatment plant in Lithuania
German water experts WTE Wassertechnik GmbH together with Norwegian partner Cambi AS signed a major order for construction of an advanced sludge treatment plant in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.
The employer is Vilniaus Vandenys, the city municipal water and wastewater utility, is investing over 200 million Litas (€58 million). The scope of works includes sludge thickening, digestion, sludge dewatering and low-temperature drying, odor control as well as utilization of produced biogas in a combined heat and power station.
By introduction of a thermal hydrolysis plant, which WTE’s partner Cambi of Norway will be responsible for, the highly efficient sludge treatment facility ensures a pasteurized and odorless final biosolids product.
The resulting high digestion rate and high dry solids feed give only 1/3 to 1/2 the digester volume of conventional systems, but lead to significantly increased biogas production and reduced final product volume.
Prem Rawat Foundation gives grant for building permanent water wells in Niger
The Los Angeles-based Prem Rawat Foundation (TPRF) made a $10,000 grant to the Sierra Vista Rotary Club Charities in Arizona to aid 40,000 Nigeriens by providing sustainable, permanent sources of clean water at the Tamesna Center for Nomadic Life in the desert region near Agadez, Niger.
These grant funds will be matched by other Rotary Clubs and The Rotary Foundation, potentially bringing together over $61,000 for this project. Contaminated water, laced with E. coli, Guinea worm, Vibrio cholerae, Giardia lamblia and poliovirus, sickens and debilitates millions each year. One in five children in Niger die before the age of 5.
This is the third grant from TPRF to aid people in Niger. Two others of $10,000 and $30,000 were for food aid programs.
UK, Ireland, Poland benefit from various Siemens water technologies applications
Siemens Water Technologies is supplying 50 HydraClam online distribution water quality monitoring devices, along with a 12-month service contract, to United Utilities in northwest England. Once installed, this will be the first large-scale adoption of the remote communication-enabled monitors which measure turbidity, pressure, conductivity, and temperature and transmit results by GPRS to a web-based viewing dashboard anywhere in the world.
In other news, Siemens will provide two OSEC onsite hypochlorite electrolytic chlorination systems to Dublin City Council for the Ballymore Eustace Water Treatment Plant in County Kildare, Ireland – the country’s largest such plant, serving about 70% of Dublin. The systems, which will replace chlorine gas systems, are part of a series of enhancements at the 72-year-old plant over the next five years to increase capacity from 250 Ml/d to 318 Ml/d with a peak of 400 Ml/d. Once operational in 2009, it will be the largest electrochlorination plant in the UK and Ireland.
Lastly, Siemens won a contract to provide a process control and automation system, and electrical works for sludge incineration at the WWTP in Lodz, Poland. The PLN 3.5 million ($1.13 million) project is part of an ongoing modernization to meet requirements of the EU Directive No. 91/271/EEC. Plant capacity has risen to 200,000 m3/day (in dry weather), or 52% of the region’s total wastewater.
Field Notes
SCOTLAND: Mott MacDonald was appointed by Scottish Water to produce Drinking Water Safety Plans (DWSPs). It will work with consultancies MWH and Halcrow to produce DWSPs for 290 public water supplies across Scotland by 2012. It also was appointed by Ethiopia’s Ministry of Water Resources (MoWR) on a €36 million water and sanitation project, jointly funded by the European Commission and European Investment Bank.
UAE: Mubadala Development Co. and Veolia Water are creating a joint-venture company to focus on water production and wastewater collection and treatment in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, which could lead to further joint ventures for other business sectors of the Veolia Environnement Group. Mubadala Development Co., a public joint stock company based in Abu Dhabi.
UK: IDEX Corp. acquired Integrated Environmental Technology Group (IETG), a Leeds-based provider of flow monitoring and underground utility surveillance services for the water and wastewater markets. The £15 million ($26 million) a year business will operate as part of ADS Environmental Services within IDEX’s Fluid & Metering Technologies segment.
TANZANIA: Global Action and the Hernreich Family Foundation pledged at the Clinton Global Initiative’s Water & Sanitation Mega-Commitment to make safe drinking water accessible to people in rural Tanzania. With a goal of reaching 25,000 people, they’re partnering with the H.J. Heinz Co. and Procter & Gamble to implement in-home use of micronutrient fortification and water purifiers developed by the companies.
NORWAY: maxit Group will be supplying its filter media Filtralite to Quadrimex in France for refurbishing France’s Joinville Water Treatment Works. About 1,600 m3 of the product will be delivered from September 2008 through the end of 2008.
IRAQ: USA-based Sweco won a contract worth over €1 million from Swedish NGO Qandil to improve the water supply in the city of Erbil, a city of a million people in a Kurdish area of Iraq that dates to 2500 BC. The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) is funding the project with other regional initiatives aimed at improving access to water.
SWEDEN: Alfa Laval won an expansion project for three thermal evaporation systems from Vedanta Aluminum Ltd. in India. Valued at about SEK 150 million [US$22.19 million] with delivery in 2009, it involves recycling caustic back to the main process after concentration by thermal evaporation. Alfa Laval also agreed to acquire 13% more of Alfa Laval (India) Ltd., pushing its stake in the business to 90%.
ALGERIA: At the end of April, the KSB Group received an order in the double-digit million euro range to supply products to a new seawater desalination plant to be built in Tlemcen, western Algeria. The order is for 64 pumps and around 1,000 butterfly valves.
