IDE awards contract to Energy Recovery for desalination project in California

Sea water desalination and water reuse solutions provider IDE Technologies has chosen Energy Recovery’s new energy recovery device (ERD) technology for the Carlsbad Desalination Project in California.

The ERD technology can be used to reach carbon-neutral goals while reducing overall energy costs.

Energy Recovery will provide 144 of its PX Pressure Exchanger Q300 units to the seawater reverse-osmosis (SWRO) plant, facilitating the estimated production output of 189,250m³ of desalinated water a day.

PX Pressure Exchanger devices capture hydraulic energy from the high-pressure reject stream of SWRO processes and transfer the energy to low-pressure feed water with an efficiency of over 98%. The overall energy consumption of the process is reduced as the device itself consumes no electrical power and recycles otherwise lost energy in the form of pressure.

Energy Recovery’s PX technology is expected to save the plant approximately 116 million kilowatt-hours of energy annually, leading to a 41,000t reduction in CO2 emissions.

Energy Recovery CEO Tom Rooney said, "We’re excited to bring our experience and technologies to help this project and future U.S. desalination plants maximize their energy savings just as we have helped quench demand in regions and countries lacking fresh water like Australia, China and the Middle East North Africa."

The Carlsbad desalination plant is set to come on-stream in 2016. It will provide enough drinking water for 112,000 households.

The plant is a joint venture between Kiewit/JF Shea Construction, and has been contracted to IDE Technologies as the SWRO design contractor. The company will operate it and is also responsible for all process and performance guarantees.

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Image: Energy Recovery will provide 144 units of PX Pressure Exchanger Q300 devices to the SWRO plant. Photo: courtesy of Energy Recovery.