The United States uses desalination plants to supplement the water supply like in San Diego CA where 10 of the usable water. The present day desalination plants use 5 to 26 times as much as this theoretical minimum depending on the type of process used.
The Sydney Desalination Plant used 2577 million kWh last year compared with 838 million kWh in 200910.
How much power does a desalination plant use. The amount of energy consumed from a desalination plant which supplies water to 300000 is the equivalent to one jumbo jets power. SWRO stands for Salt Water Reverse Osmosis the ability to turn salt water into freshwater also known as desalination. The Singapore-Tuas Seawater Desalination plant is a seawater reverse osmosis plant finished in 2005 with a capacity of 29 million gallons per day.
The plant achieves an energy rate of 16 kWhkgal and was able to produce water in its first year at the rate of 600acre foot comparable with quoted prices for coastal communities in California. The Energy Markets and End Use the average annual household energy power consumption is 110 MW. If the entire community is served by seawater desalinated water the annual power required for the desalination plant to serve a house is 10 MW or an increase of less than 10.
In most cases however the existing traditional supply sources are. Theoretically about 086 kWh of energy is needed to desalinate 1 m 3 of salt water. The present day desalination plants use 5 to 26 times as much as this theoretical minimum depending on the type of process used.
Table 2 shows the energy consumption of different types of water desalination. The thermal desalination techniques primarily MSF and MED have much higher energy footprint than the membrane ones. They consume 171 and 119 kW hm3 respectively however thermal technologies are more efficient for desalination of very salty waters.
Process within the SWRO treatment plant o ERD can reduce energy consumption of RO process up to 60. Therefore it is a critical component to achieving 2 kWhm3 o ERD CAPEX only represents 1 of overall plant CAPEX ENERGY CONSUMPTION FOR SWRO 19 Energy Consumption per Process Permeate distribution 022 kWhm3. The Ras Al-Khair power and desalination plant is powered by CCGT technology with a 2400-MWe capacity from five high-efficiency gas turbines.
This type of powerdesalination plant combination could conceivably desalinate 250000 to 500000 gallons of water per day using only 500 megawatts of power. This process could be as much as 50 percent more economical than current practices Gude predicted. According to the International Desalination Association in June 2015 18426 desalination plants operated worldwide producing 868 million cubic meters per day providing water for 300 million people.
This number increased from 784 million cubic meters in 2013 a 1071 increase in 2 years. Its also an energy hog. Desalination plants around the world consume more than 200 million kilowatt-hours each day with energy costs an estimated 55 percent of plants total operation and.
Sydney Water has also reported the electricity use by the Sydney Desalination Plant in this report. The plant is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sydney Water. The Sydney Desalination Plant used 2577 million kWh last year compared with 838 million kWh in 200910.
Desalination plants on average use about 15000 kilowatt-hours of power for every million gallons of fresh water thats produced the Pacific Institute said today in a report. The Sydney Desalination Plant is powered by 100 renewable wind energy and requires roughly 38 Megawatts at full production. The energy it consumes is equivalent to the energy consumed by a domestic fridge if all of the water used in the household was supplied from our desalination plant.
Top of page What is the impact on the environment. There is no fixed answer as costs are driven by the treatment scheme the chosen technology for separation distance from the sea quality requirements and source chemical and physical parameters. There are also purely operational and contractua.
The values cited in literature range from 22 kWh per cubic meter in desalination plants of Canary Islands see attached publication to 63 kWh per cubic meter which is the value reported in the. Desalination is a process that converts saltwater resources into freshwater products. When it goes through the filtration steps necessary to remove the extra sodium from the liquid the water becomes usable for agriculture industrial needs and for drinking purposes.
The United States uses desalination plants to supplement the water supply like in San Diego CA where 10 of the usable water.