DEWA nears completion of SWRO plant in Jebel Ali

Utilities giant Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) has announced it has completed 96.50 per cent of the sea water reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination plant at Jebel Ali Power Plant and Water Desalination Complex.

The complex is one of the key pillars for supplying Dubai with electricity and water services. According to a Dubai Media Office report, DEWA had awarded the implementation of the Dhs897m plant, with a production capacity of 40 million imperial gallons per day (MIGD) of desalinated water, to a consortium led by Spain’s Acciona Agua and Belhasa Six Construct (BeSIX).

Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD and CEO of DEWA, said that the project started water production to the network in March 2021. The project is expected to be fully complete in the second quarter of the year.

He added: “At DEWA, we continue to implement electricity and water infrastructure projects to keep pace with the continuous growth in Dubai and the growing demand for electricity and water. DEWA’s installed capacity of desalinated water is 490 MIGD, with peak water demand reaching 380 MIGD during 2021. DEWA aims to increase its SWRO production capacity to 303 MIGD by 2030. SWRO desalination plants require less energy than multi-stage flash plants. The desalinated water production capacity will reach 730 MIGD in 2030.

“According to DEWA’s strategy, 100 per cent of desalinated water will be produced by a clean energy mix that uses both renewable energy and waste heat by 2030. This will allow Dubai to exceed global targets for using clean energy to desalinate water. Increasing the operational efficiency by decoupling desalinated water production from electricity generation will save around Dhs13bn and reduce 44 million tonnes of carbon emissions by 2030.”

Read: Dubai to reduce almost a third of its carbon emissions by 2030

This is the first time DEWA has implemented the dissolved air flotation system at the “K” station SWRO plant to pre-treat sea water and remove any pollutants before the desalination process. This enables the desalination process to continue in all conditions, especially during red tide when total suspended solids and turbidity reach high levels.

The plant is also equipped with a dual media filter, which filters and improves the quality of seawater feed, thus increasing the lifetime and performance of the reverse osmosis membranes. Moreover, the two-pass reverse osmosis system implemented in this project guarantees a high quality of potable water.

The SWRO plant is equipped with recovery devices with a 96 per cent efficiency rate. They utilise the high pressure from the first pass brine/reject stream and transfer it to a portion of the feed water stream to the first pass inlet. This significantly reduces electricity consumption in the high-pressure pump, enhancing the efficiency of the desalination process.