Let's drink the ocean!
DESALINATION PLANT SHOAIBA 3 EXPANSION II, SAUDI ARABIA
Seventy percent of the Earth is covered by water (about 1,390 million cubic kilometres between surface and subsurface). An area so enormous that it earned the name of blue planet. However, 97.5 percent of it is sea and ocean, and only the remaining 2.5 percent is actually fresh water.
This fact, together with global population growth, increasing periods of drought and desertification processes triggered by global warming, make innovative water supply solutions increasingly necessary.
An exemplary model is the Shoaiba 3 desalination plant, in Saudi Arabia, on the Red Sea coast, about 120 km south of Jeddah, a city that it supplies along with Mecca and Taif, ensuring drinking water for over 1 million people and hundreds of thousands of pilgrims.
Built in 2017-19, the plant uses reverse osmosis technology (a purification process through membranes), offering a capacity of 55 million gallons per day (1 gallon equals about 4.5 liters) and a 40 percent recovery rate.
Leveraging circular economy principles and solving a long-standing issue that has always plagued desert territories (95 percent of Saudi Arabia is desert), the Shoaiba 3 desalination plant is vital to support population growth, urbanization and lifestyle modernization, but also to meet the growing demand for water related to the development of utilities, businesses, tourism and agriculture.
THE WORK AND THE TECHNIQUE
M³/G CAPACITY
RECOVERY
UNIT RO TRAINS DOUBLE PASS
MEMBRANE TYPE: SPIRAL WOUND
PRE-TREATMENT: DUAL MEDIA FILTERS
POST-TREATMENT: CO2 AND LIME WATER INJECTION
ACWA Power
Joint venture Fisia Italimpianti (Webuild Group) and Abeinsa Infraestructuras Medio Ambiente, S.A.
The Shoaiba III Expansion II project was contracted to Fisia Italimpianti, part of the Webuild Group. The main challenge was dictated by the time required by the client; in fact, the work was completed in 21 months.
CULTURAL INSIGHTS
A matter of vital importance
In Saudi Arabia water supply has always been an issue of vital-importance.
Huge influences on Saudi water issues are the sudden population growth, which in this region is among the world's highest (the population increased from 4.09 million in 1960 to 33,26 in 2023), accompanied by a parallel increase in the urbanization rate, which reached 85% and the modernization of both lifestyles and consumption patterns.
The combination of population growth, rising urbanization, and modernization of lifestyles not only directly increases water consumption but also drives an indirect rise in demand.
Therefore, producing desalinated water is now essential for the economic and social development of Saudi Arabia, where volumes have increased from 1.460 billion litres in 2011 to 11 billion and 5 million of production capacity registered at the end of 2023.
Finally, to understand the strategic importance of desalination plants in this country, it should be noted that in 2019 groundwater extraction amounted to 22.46 billion litres, while surface water sources provided just 930 million litres.
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