Water. desalination + reuse

INTERVIEW | 14 | Desalination & Water Reuse | February-March 2014 100,000 m 3 /d Western Region Seawater Desalination Plant at Takoradi). The project is on an exclusivity basis to be developed by Ghana Water Company, and we are now negotiating the terms of the deal. And then from Ghana, following in the steps of our solar colleagues, I think we will be able to try to do business in South Africa. It will be difficult, but I think that in the end they will need the water. We want to continue doing business in the USA. As you know, we have bought a company in Texas (NRS Consulting Engineers in Harlingen) and now we are doing pretty well following successful oil & gas projects demonstrating our abilities in that sector. We will probably be interested in the upcoming desalination project for the Guadalupe- Blanco River Authority and the one in Corpus Christi too. Next we would like to expand into areas that have similar problems: Colorado and Arizona, for instance. I don't think it is the right time yet to look at Canada; we will have to see what happens with our experience in oil & gas. Then, depending on this and how well we succeed with reuse, we will see. In China, we are continuing the work we have been doing in Qingdao. We also have an exclusivity agreement in Dalian for the joint development on Changxing Island (China) of a desalination program to supply water to the local industries and urban hubs envisaged in the development plan. Working with Hitachi, we are currently trying to finalize the construction agreement to start the project. Apart from that, our strategy is to expand our water-reuse technology to match the one we have in desalination. We are expanding this activity and are closing a joint venture with one of the companies here (China), which has about one-third of the Chinese market. We are building reference plants to expand our activities. But you don't have many reuse plants at present, do you? We have a small one in Spain, but that is different technology. Reuse plants are only small at present but I feel that the moment for larger plants is coming, and we want to be in a position to take advantage. Reuse is not expanding as fast globally as was predicted because reuse projects are not being developed. I would like to use this platform to develop a company specialising in reuse. Describe your research and development programme With regard to desalination, we have been designing and putting into operation a very ambitious research and development (R&D) plan. We have spent € 18 million over three years subsidized by Spanish government programme. This phase, which has now concluded, produced great results, and so now we are carrying out a second phase to bring into physical reality what we developed in Phase 1. In parallel, using the same philosophy, we are working on three main areas: desalination, membranes specifically and reuse. In desalination, we have two main lines of study: industrial technologies and developing our expertise in plant operation and services. Currently we are looking at brine concentration and recovery of elements; reduction of energy use; and new technologies such as forward osmosis, biomimetic membranes, membrane distillation and so on. Do you have a view on which technology looks most promising? We are only at the very beginning, but I think that in five years time these will all find a use – probably not as we are thinking now, but they will find an application, perhaps with our solar plants, for instance. The second main area of research is in membranes themselves – we are developing our own membranes. We formed our own company, Micronet Porous Fibers, five years ago to develop hollow-fibre membranes for micro- and ultrafiltration. We are already producing these membranes and using them on our projects. The idea was not so much to compete against the major membrane manufacturers, but more to be able to design and use our own specific technology in our own projects. One additional possibility in this direction is related to the third area of research: wastewater reuse. Using our own technologies, it is possible that we could perhaps eliminate the tertiary stage of wastewater treatment and go straight to reuse. We are also working on how to safely reduce the volume of sludge from wastewater treatment. We are working with about 30 different institutions in our R&D programme. It is an ambitious programme, but if you are not investing on R&D, you have no chance to move forward. In the company as a whole we are spending € 90 million per year on R&D, including biofuels and solar. Our current water R&D program is € 52 million to be spent over five years. What about renewable energies? We are of course very involved in solar energy, particularly solar thermal energy. We have just commissioned the largest solar thermal plant in the world, Solana in the USA, and we will have to develop new products to provide added value for our operations. No-one except us is investing in pure R&D, and our philosophy is to find ways in which we can subsidize our projects, bringing in money from the European Union or different institutions. There is, of course, no more funding from the Spanish government in the present circumstances. And the future? One thing I would like to say about dealing with supplying the water needs of the world in the future, is that we need to educate the people more about the situation. And Abengoa is also prepared to do its part in this task as well.l The Skikda reverse osmosis plant

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