JEDDAH: Saudi energy firm ACWA Power is set to open the world’s largest reverse osmosis plant in Abu Dhabi in October 2022 to facilitate efficient power consumption by moving away from thermal-powered systems, revealed a top company official.
Speaking to Arab News, Tariq Nada, the company’s vice president for water and technical services, disclosed that the RO plant, named Taweelah, will have a production capacity of 909,000 cubic meters of water per day.
“We have solar panels everywhere in the plant, utilizing the most efficient and effective areas to reduce the overall power consumption. We are planning to go with the new technologies, whether to reduce power consumption or turn more environmentally friendly,” Nada told Arab News on the sidelines of the Innovation Driven Desalination Conference in Jeddah.
Nada also added that reducing power consumption has helped the company decline the water production cost, which ultimately reduces the tariff of the end customer.
“We have reached another world record in terms of defining the water tariff. We have a win-win kind of tariff that will benefit the end customer by the end of the day. It is hugely part of reaching where we are in terms of tariff by reducing the power consumption,” he said.
Nada further revealed that the company would retire all its thermal desalination plants and switch entirely to RO, using renewable energy to reduce power consumption.
ACWA Power is the world’s largest private developer for seawater desalination globally, claimed Nada.
He added: “At the moment, we have a portfolio of 6.4 million cubic meters per day, and the desalination plants are currently in construction and operation. So, ACWA Power, a Saudi company, is now on the top of the world as a desalination producer.”
Nada also clarified that the ACWA Power is at the final stage of applying complete digitization in its plants.
Interestingly, the company uses green desalination to minimize and eliminate chemical consumption within the RO plants.
