Desalination is a process that takes away mineral components from saline water. More generally, desalination refers to the removal of salts and minerals from a target substance, as in soil desalination, which is an issue for agriculture.
Jubail is a city in the Eastern province on the Persian Gulf coast of Saudi Arabia. It is home to the largest industrial city in the world. It is also home to the Middle East's largest and world's fourth largest petrochemical company SABIC. It has the world's largest IWPP producing 2743.6 MW of electricity and 800,000 m3 of water daily. Jubail comprises the Old Town of Al Jubail, which was a small fishing village until 1975 and the new industrial area. Jubail Industrial City is the largest civil engineering project in the world today.
Water supply and sanitation in Singapore is characterised by a number of achievements in the challenging environment of a densely populated island. Access to water is universal, affordable, efficient and of high quality. Innovative integrated water management approaches such as the reuse of reclaimed water, the establishment of protected areas in urban rainwater catchments and the use of estuaries as freshwater reservoirs have been introduced along with seawater desalination in order to reduce the country's dependence on water imported from neighbouring country, Malaysia.
The Embalse Nuclear Power Station is one of three operational nuclear power plants in Argentina. It is located on the southern shore of a reservoir on the Río Tercero, near the city of Embalse, Córdoba, 110 km south-southwest of Córdoba City.
Malakoff Corporation Berhad is an independent water and power producer (“IWPP”) with core focus on power generation, water desalination and operation & maintenance services. In Malaysia, Malakoff is the largest independent power producer (“IPP”) with a net generating capacity of 6,346 MW from its seven power plants.
Water supply and sanitation in Saudi Arabia is characterized by challenges and achievements. One of the main challenges is water scarcity. In order to overcome water scarcity, substantial investments have been undertaken in seawater desalination, water distribution, sewerage and wastewater treatment. Today about 50% of drinking water comes from desalination, 40% from the mining of non-renewable groundwater and only 10% from surface water in the mountainous southwest of the country. The capital Riyadh, located in the heart of the country, is supplied with desalinated water pumped from the Persian Gulf over a distance of 467 km. Water is provided almost for free to residential users. Despite improvements, service quality remains poor, for example in terms of continuity of supply. Another challenge is weak institutional capacity and governance, reflecting general characteristics of the public sector in Saudi Arabia. Among the achievements is a significant increase in desalination, and in access to water, the expansion of wastewater treatment, as well as the use of treated effluent for the irrigation of urban green spaces, and for agriculture.
An independent power producer (IPP) or non-utility generator (NUG) is an entity, which is not a public utility, but which owns facilities to generate electric power for sale to utilities and end users. NUGs may be privately held facilities, corporations, cooperatives such as rural solar or wind energy producers, and non-energy industrial concerns capable of feeding excess energy into the system. An independent water and power producer (IWPP) is similar to an IPP, but with a unified process to also output usable treated water.
The Shoaiba power and desalination plant is an oil-fired CCGT power and desalination complex in Saudi Arabia on the coast of Red Sea, about 120 kilometres (75 mi) south of Jeddah. It is one of the world's largest fossil fuel power plants, and the world's third largest integrated water and power plant.
The Sydney Desalination Plant is a potable drinking water desalination plant that forms part of the water supply system of Greater Metropolitan Sydney. The plant is located in the Kurnell industrial estate, in Southern Sydney in the Australian state of New South Wales. The plant uses reverse osmosis filtration membranes to remove salt from seawater and is powered using renewable energy, supplied to the national power grid from the Infigen Energy–owned Capital Wind Farm located at Bungendore.
Fujairah F1 Independent Water and Power Plant or Fujairah F1 IWPP is a hybrid plant at Qidfa', Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates. It is located next to the Qidfa Power Station 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) south of Khor Fakkan and 20 kilometres (12 mi) north of the city of Fujairah. When constructed, the Fujairah plant was the first hybrid plant in the Middle East, and the largest desalination hybrid plant in the world.
The Fujairah F2 IWPP is an integrated water and power plant (IWPP) project in Fujairah, the United Arab Emirates. When construction is finished, it will be the world's second largest IWPP project.
Water supply and sanitation in Israel are intricately linked to the historical development of Israel. Because rain falls only in the winter, and largely in the northern part of the country, irrigation and water engineering are considered vital to the country's economic survival and growth. Large scale projects to desalinate seawater, direct water from rivers and reservoirs in the north, make optimal use of groundwater, and reclaim flood overflow and sewage have been undertaken. Among them is the National Water Carrier, carrying water from the country's biggest freshwater lake, the Sea of Galilee, to the northern Negev desert through channels, pipes and tunnels. Israel's water demand today outstrips available conventional water resources. Thus, in an average year, Israel relies for about half of its water supply on unconventional water resources, including reclaimed water and desalination. A particularly long drought in 1998–2002 had prompted the government to promote large-scale seawater desalination.
The Claude "Bud" Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant is a desalination plant that opened on December 14, 2015 in Carlsbad, California, adjacent to the north end of the Encina Power Station. The San Diego County Water Authority (SDCWA), the recipient of the fresh water produced by the plant, calls it "the nation’s largest, most technologically advanced and energy-efficient seawater desalination plant." The entire desalination project cost about $1 billion for the plant, pipelines, and upgrades to existing SDCWA facilities to use the water.
The three cities of Abu Dhabi Emirate within the United Arab Emirates – the coastal city Abu Dhabi itself as well as the inland oases Al Ain and Liwa – receive their drinking water supply entirely from desalinated seawater.
Water supply and sanitation in Greece is characterised by diversity. While Athens receives its water from a series of reservoirs, some of which are located 200 km away, some small islands are supplied with water from tankers. Greeks have suffered from repeated droughts, the most recent one occurring in 2007. The EU supported the construction of numerous wastewater treatment plants since the 1990s in order to achieve EU environmental standards. While the wastewater discharge of the biggest cities is now in compliance with these standards, some smaller towns still lag behind.
The Minjur Desalination Plant is a reverse osmosis, water desalination plant at Kattupalli village, a northern suburb of Chennai, India, on the coast of the Bay of Bengal that supplies water to the city of Chennai. Built on a 60-acre site, it is the largest desalination plant in India. Construction works were carried out by the Indian company IVRCL and the Spanish company Abengoa, under the direction of the Project Manager Fernando Portillo Vallés and the Construction Manager Juan Ignacio Jiménez-Velasco, who returned to Europe after the inauguration of the plant to work on Renewable Energy Projects. Originally scheduled to be operational by January 2009, the work on the plant was delayed due to Cyclone Nisha in October 2008, which damaged a portion of the completed marine works and destroyed the cofferdam meant for the installation of transition pipes. The trial runs were completed in June 2010 and the plant was opened in July 2010. Water from the plant will be utilised chiefly for industrial purposes such as the Ennore Port and North Chennai Thermal Power Station. However, during droughts, water from the plant will be supplied to the public, serving an estimated population of 1,000,000.
Drinking water supply and sanitation in Algeria is characterized by achievements and challenges. Among the achievements is a substantial increase in the amount of drinking water supplied from reservoirs, long-distance water transfers and desalination at a low price to consumers, thanks to the country's substantial oil and gas revenues. These measures increased per capita water supply despite a rapidly increasing population. Another achievement is the transition from intermittent to continuous water supply in the capital Algiers in 2011, along with considerable improvements in wastewater treatment resulting in better water quality at beaches. These achievements were made possible through a public-private partnership with a private French water company. The number of wastewater treatment plants throughout the country increased rapidly from only 18 in 2000 to 113 in 2011, with 96 more under construction. However, there are also many challenges. One of them is poor service quality in many cities outside Algiers with 78% of urban residents suffering from intermittent water supply. Another challenge is the pollution of water resources. There has also been insufficient progress concerning reuse of treated water, a government priority in this dry country.
Shuqaiq 2 IWPP is an integrated water and power plant project in Shuqaiq, Saudi Arabia. Construction of Shuqaiq 2 IWPP began in 2007 and achieved commercial operation in 2010. The project’s power and desalination units are located adjacent to the existing Shuqaiq 1 power and desalination complex, 105 km south of Abha and 140 km north of Jizan, on the south-western coast of Saudi Arabia.
Solar power in the United Arab Emirates has the potential to provide most of the country's electricity demand. While being a major oil producing country, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has taken steps to introduce solar power on a large scale. However, solar power still accounts for a small share of energy production in the country. Until 2013, there was no operational solar power in the UAE. The country was the 6th top carbon dioxide emitter per capita in the world in 2009, with 40.31 tonnes, but is planning to generate the vast majority of its electrical energy by 2050 from solar and nuclear sources.
Estimates vary widely between 15,000–20,000 desalination plants producing more than 20,000 m3/day. Micro desalination plants operate near almost every natural gas or fracking facility in the United States.
