Desalination: from seawater to drinking water, a solution to water stress

We provide you with our expertise in the design, construction and operation of seawater or brackish water desalination plants. Our solutions are perfectly suited to meet the requirements of your country, whether for the production of drinking water, irrigation or for your industrial water needs.

We offer tailor-made desalination plants or containerised modules depending on the production capacity sought. We incorporate the latest technological innovations to be at the forefront of performance and minimise operating costs.

In addition, we are committed to a sustainable approach, using renewable energy and implementing energy recovery systems to reduce overall consumption. We support you throughout the development of your desalination project, from the design phase to operation and maintenance.

With SUEZ, you benefit from recognised expertise and a long-term commitment to the success of your desalination facilities.

At SUEZ, we rely on our expertise as a builder-operator acquired throughout the world to offer you accessible solutions, designed and built according to your specific needs and each type of water to be treated.

Modular desalination units adapted to your use

• From seawater or brackish water for the production of drinking water, irrigation or industrial water,
• For plants of all sizes

A range of technologies to secure your plant's production

• To maximise the availability of drinking water production regardless of the quality of the water resource
• Mature, robust solutions that have been proven for more than 20 years on large plants (> 100,000 m³/day)

Adapted operation and service solutions

• We put our experience as an operator at your disposal
• The constant search for operational excellence is in our DNA: optimisation of operating costs, minimisation of water losses, etc.
• Intelligent management based on predictive models
• À la carte services: supply of spare parts, rehabilitation, staff training, etc.

At SUEZ, we provide you with original solutions and innovative high-performance technologies:

• Financial and contractual solutions to reduce investment costs,
• Cutting-edge technologies to optimise processes and reduce operating costs,
• Operational support tools to secure fresh water production and optimise operating costs on an ongoing basis
• Partnerships in particular for joint management of water and sanitation services, with the aim of optimising costs and controlling the ecological footprint.

At SUEZ, in line with our sustainability roadmap, we are committed to developing circular solutions for desalination.

 

• Our designs incorporate energy recovery systems that reduce your plant's overall consumption.
• The use of carbon-free or renewable energies, such as wind and photovoltaics, can improve the carbon footprint of your desalination units.
• In addition, we manage brines in a controlled manner, thus preserving marine ecosystems.
• These same brines can also be recycled.

These solutions meet the energy and environmental challenges of your country, thus promoting your anchoring in a circular economy dynamic.

In reverse osmosis desalination plants, water goes through several stages in order to purify it and make it drinkable. A crucial step, the pre-treatment of seawater improves the performance of reverse osmosis. Our pre-treatment solutions make it possible to:

• Guarantee plant availability in any seawater condition
• Decrease overall pre-treatment water losses, even in plants where seawater degradation is occasional
• Improve the quality of pretreated water to increase the service life of reverse osmosis membranes.

 

With good sea quality at the entrance to your plant, high-speed filtration upstream of the reverse osmosis membranes will prevent them from becoming clogged. Our SeaClean® range of pressure filters achieves acceptable inlet water quality for chemical-free membranes.

With a so-called difficult seawater quality, it is necessary to add a flotation step upstream of the filtration. Our SeaDAF® range of rapid dissolved air flotation (DAF) solutions not only make reverse osmosis water production safe against algal blooms, but also has benefits for downstream processes outside of these events.

Combined solutions for a small footprint and optimised performance: our combined flotation solutions (DAF) and media pressure filtration reduce the pre-treatment footprint by more than 30%.

The recovery of brine now makes it possible to develop more sustainable desalination projects through the reduction of discharges into the natural environment, a solution with high added value in terms of economic and societal impacts.

SUEZ is developing a brine recovery sector that allows you to:

• Extract and recover CO₂ and use it to meet the alkalinity requirements of the produced water;
• Produce better freshwater quality by reusing a mineral blend based on calcium and magnesium;
• Produce reusable acid for seawater pre-treatment and membrane cleaning.

 

These processes are suitable for desalination plants of all sizes.

One of our most emblematic projects is the desalination plant in the state of Victoria in Australia, a major public-private partnership. This $3.5 billion project has been entrusted to AQUASURE, a special purpose vehicle composed of 8 shareholder investors, including SUEZ. It can produce up to 150 gigalitres of desalinated water per year (450,000 m³/d), with a capacity expandable to 200 gigalitres, serving about 4.5 million inhabitants. We are also at the forefront of technological innovation, reducing the energy needs of our plants through energy recovery systems and offsetting energy consumption through renewable energy sources.

The desalination plant, with a capacity of 100,000 m³, will supply the industrial complex with process water. Our technical expertise has made it possible to provide a unique solution to support Wanhua Chemical Group and its partners towards an ecological transition by preserving local freshwater resources and protecting the environment.