Something in the water

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Freedonia analyst Mike Richardson speaks to Utilities Middle East about desal techniques and the part that renewable energies will play in this crucial process.

What desalination techniques are most frequently practised by Middle Eastern plants and why are they used?

The Middle East’s Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait are among the world’s largest national markets for desalination. The dominant technique in the region is multi-stage flash (MSF) distillation, although multiple effect
distillation (MED) is a growing technology, too.

The main advantages of MSF are that it is capable of turning immense amounts of seawater with high levels of dissolved solids and turning it into pure water with almost no dissolved solids. The largest MSF plants in the world, which are all in the Middle East, are capable of processing several hundred thousand cubic metres of water per day. The main drawback of MSF is that its energy requirements are very high, which makes it expensive even in areas with a lot of oil or gas. MED’s energy needs are lower, and recent advances in technology have allowed for plants of greater capacities to be built, making it more competitive with MSF.

Membrane-based technologies, especially reverse osmosis (RO), are growing in the region as well. In the most oil-rich countries, this is less true, but even Saudi Arabia is adding more RO capacity. In the less oil-rich countries, like Algeria, RO is on its way to being the dominant technology, because its energy requirements are so much lower.

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Well, if we define “renewable” as “not oil and gas”, there are already a number of initiatives in the works. Most such initiatives involve nuclear power. Although Saudi Arabia is in the mix with nuclear-powered desal, I think there are prospects for expanding desalination capacity into countries like Jordan and Libya, which have potential as desal markets.

If we define “renewable” in terms of things like wind or solar, it will be a bigger deal - at least in the shorter term - in places like Europe, the US and Australia.

What would you say are the desal project ‘success stories’ around the world that the Middle East should look to emulate?

Desalination projucts seem usually to be a mixed bag when it comes to success or failures. Construction projects don’t always go to plan, there are more problems encountered than what was expected, shutdowns are of greater frequency and duration than anticipated. But ultimately, with a few exceptions, the countries in the Middle East and North Africa seem to be turning to RO and other membrane techniques. Even in countries with ample energy, oil used in hungry MSF systems is oil that could have been sold on the global market.

Do you think there is mileage in mobile desal systems in the Middle East?

It is difficult to say. Clearly, such systems are more popular right now elsewhere in the world than they are in the Middle East. Generally, the cost of producing a unit of desalinated water goes down significantly when the quantity produced increases. This would argue against smaller systems, especially in countries where desalinated water accounts for a large share of the potable water supply. But in industrial applications, or in resort areas, smaller systems may have a role.