DEWA increases its capacity of desalinated water to 490 million imperial gallons per day

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) has announced that its capacity of desalinated water production has increased to 490 million imperial gallons per day (MIGD) after adding new advanced units at its Jebel Ali Power Plant and Desalination Complex using Sea Water Reverse Osmosis (SWRO) technology. This is part of its efforts to keep pace with the continuous growth in Dubai and meet the growing demand for electricity and water in the Emirate.

“We work in line with the vision of the wise leadership to develop a world-class infrastructure to keep pace with the growing demand for energy and water and provide excellent services for over a million customers in Dubai according to the highest standards of availability, reliability, safety and efficiency. This is supported by assets worth more than AED 182 billion owned by DEWA and its subsidiaries as well as investments of up to AED 86 billion over five years in the energy and water sectors,” said HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD & CEO of DEWA.

Al Tayer explained that DEWA currently has 43 Multi-Stage Flash (MSF) water desalination units with a total production capacity of 427 MIGD of water at the D-, E-, G-, K-, L, and M Stations. It also has 2 SWRO plants with a production capacity of 63 MIGD. DEWA’s total production capacity of desalinated water is 490 MIGD at the Jebel Ali Power Plant and Desalination Complex.

Al Tayer noted that DEWA aims to increase its SWRO production capacity to 303 MIGD by 2030; reaching 42% instead of its current share of 13%. The desalinated water production capacity will reach 730 MIGD in 2030. SWRO desalination plants require less energy than MSF plants. One of DEWA’s latest projects using this technology is at the Jebel Ali K-Station, which has a production capacity of 40 MIGD and investments worth AED 897 million.

Nasser Lootah, Executive Vice President of Generation Division at DEWA, said that DEWA adopts smart technologies that allow effective desalination plant control and monitoring, thus enhancing availability and reliability. For the first time, DEWA implemented in “K” station SWRO plant the Dissolved Air Flotation (DAF) system to treat water and remove any pollutants prior to desalination process. This enables the desalination process to continue in all conditions especially during red tide when total suspended solids and turbidity reach high levels. Moreover, the two-pass reverse osmosis system implemented in this project guarantees a high quality of potable water. The SWRO plant is equipped with highly efficient recovery devices “96% efficiency” which utilise the high pressure from the first pass brine/reject stream and transfers it to a portion of the feed water stream to first pass inlet. This significantly reduces electricity consumption in the high pressure pump, thus enhancing efficiency of the desalination process.

DEWA ensures desalinated water quality through continuous monitoring across all stages of the desalination process, thus allowing customers to have access to drinking water that meets the highest international quality and safety standards including that of the World Health Organization (WHO) for producing, transmitting, and distributing drinking water.