Acciona Agua Contracts with Energy Recovery for Desal Plant
Energy Recovery, Inc. (ERI) announced on March 31 it was awarded the 75,000 m3/d energy recovery technology contract from Acciona Agua for the Paraguaná seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination plant in Venezuela.
The project is under construction and scheduled for completion in early 2010.
The plant is located on the Paraguaná peninsula in the Falcón region of northwest Venezuela, an area considered to be one of the driest places in the country. The project at Petróleos de Venezuela SA’s Paraguaná Refinery Complex is being designed and built jointly by Spanish water company Acciona Agua and Petróleos. The complex will use approximately 30 percent of the production capacity, with the remainder supplying a population of 350,000. This will be the largest RO desalination plant in South America and one of the largest plants in the Caribbean region.
Acciona Agua is designing the plant with ERI’s energy efficient pressure recovery solution, employing 64 model PX-260 units. These devices will save the project an estimated 52 mega-watts of energy per year.
Europe’s largest facility, the 240,000 m3/d Torrevieja plant in Spain, as well as the 100,000 m3/d Fouka project in Algeria, and the 60,000 m3/d Tordera retrofit plant and the 16,000 m3/d Arucas II plant, both in Spain, are being built by Acciona using the energy recovery devices. These plants will supply fresh water for municipal, industrial, and agricultural applications.