Reasons for the Fast Growing Seawater Desalination Capacity in Algeria

Transcription

1 Water Resour Manage (2011) 25: DOI /s Reasons for the Fast Growing Seawater Desalination Capacity in Algeria Nadjib Drouiche Noreddine Ghaffour Mohamed Wahib Naceur Hacene Mahmoudi Tarik Ouslimane Received: 1 September 2010 / Accepted: 2 May 2011 / Published online: 24 May 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V Abstract Seawater/brackish water desalination has been widely adopted by the Algerian Government in the last few years to supply potable water to municipality for various purposes mainly for domestic and industrial uses especially in areas where demand is high due to shortage of fresh water resources, rapid population growth and development of industry and tourism. Ten years ago, desalination was confined to the industrial use only especially in oil and gas industry as the country was relying on rain water and other available sources to supply fresh water to municipalities. Due to chronic drought conditions, the Ministry of Water Resources reviewed the national water strategy and a strong option for desalination was adopted where an ambitious program was thus put into action. Sixteen mega-plants, with capacities ranging from 100,000 to 500,000 m 3 per day, primarily based on Reverse Osmosis technology, were launched in the last few years making the Algerian desalination program one of the world s fastest growing markets. Five desalination plants, including the Africa s largest seawater reverse osmosis project with a total capacity of 200,000 m 3 per day, N. Drouiche (B) T. Ouslimane Silicon Technology Development Unit, Department of Environmental Engineering, 2, Bd Frantz Fanon BP140 Alger-7-mervielles, 16000, Algiers, Algeria nadjibdrouiche@yahoo.fr N. Ghaffour Water Desalination and Reuse Centre, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Jeddah, Saudi Arabia M. W. Naceur Department of Chemical Engineering, Saad Dahlab University of Blida, Blida, Algeria H. Mahmoudi University Hassiba Ben Bouali, BP 151 Chlef, Algeria H. Mahmoudi Renewable Energy Research Centre, CDER, Bouzareah, Algiers, Algeria

2 2744 N. Drouiche et al. are already in operation and the remaining projects are either under construction or in commissioning. An integrated water resources management was also adopted as additional option to cuter the increasing water demand as there is also a great potential for water reuse and conventional water treatment. An additional benefit of this would be reducing the volume of treated wastewater disposed into the environment. Keywords Desalination Water reuse Water shortage Water supply Coastal region 1 Introduction Many regions in the water stressed countries are augmenting their water supplies with desalinated water to meet the needs of the continuous growth of population and industrial, tourism and agriculture developments (Iglesias et al. 2007; Wheida and Verhoeven 2007; Krysanova et al. 2010). Although desalination has been considered among the non-conventional water resources, it can no longer be considered as a marginal resource because some countries such as Qatar and Kuwait rely 100% on desalinated water for domestic and industrial use, whereas Saudi Arabia reliance is nearly 60% (ESCWA 2009). Desalination along with water reuse and water harvesting have been classified as non-conventional water resources. This classification can easily raise controversy in countries that have been using desalination substantially for more than 50 years. Generations of water professionals in those countries have long forgotten that this resource is non-conventional. Desalination has become the main source of potable water in many countries such as Gulf States where demand has increased dramatically in the last decades. It is expected that by 2015 an additional 5 bi m 3 /year is to be provided through desalination. This need for desalinated water is no longer associated only with the Gulf states. Almost all countries of the region are now considering desalination as a potential option for potable water supply. This growth is driven by chronic water shortages due to persisting droughts, increasing populations, increasing per capita water demand and growth of industrialization (Mohamed and Al-Mualla 2010). On the other hand, this growth is also enhanced by the decrease in the costs, due mainly to technology improvements and competition. In the last three decades the desalinated total water cost decreased from around US$ 4 /m 3 to less than US$ 1/m 3 and even reached below US$0.5/m 3 for some specific large scale projects (Reddy and Ghaffour 2007). Algeria, the second largest country in Africa, has a total area of 2,381,740 km 2 and is divided into four main physical regions, which extend from east to west across the country in parallel zones. A detailed description of the different zones was presented by Mahmoudi et al. (2009). The Tell zone which is located in the north extends 80 to 190 km inland from the coastline and has a typical Mediterranean climate with four seasons. This is the most humid area in Algeria, with an annual precipitation ranging from 400 to 1,000 mm (Mahmoudi et al. 2009).

3 Fast Growing Seawater Desalination Capacity in Algeria 2745 The population of Algeria is approximately 35.6 million with an annual growth rate of 1.7% and an overall population density of 11 people per square km (Office National des statistiques (ONS) 2011). Most of these mega desalination projects are installed in this zone where about 80% of the population is concentrated (Office National des statistiques (ONS) 2011). In Algeria, the drought has raged for over two decades, mainly in the West of the country, and has significantly affected the level of water reservoirs, which reached its minimum levels. The use of groundwater in the northern region has already achieved its limit leading to higher pumping rates which has affected the groundwater levels in this region. Faced with this situation and in order to compensate the water leakage in the old network system, decision makers of water sectors decided to move towards a policy involving non-conventional water resources and launched a general survey on seawater desalination technologies reliability and costs. The main objective of the desalination program in the coastline, according to the Minister of Water Resources and its advisors, is to free water from reservoirs in the foothills along the Mediterranean so that it can be pumped up for large-scale irrigation in the High Plains zone. This would contribute to slow down the migration from the High Plains to the already crowded coastal plain. An overview of the growth of desalination capacity and its related costs as well as the new strategy of integrated water resources management taken by the Algerian Government to supply potable water to the different regions of the country is outlined in this paper. 2 Algerian and World s Desalination Capacities Presently, the world s total desalination capacity is around 60 million m 3 /day and will reach around hundred millions m 3 /day by 2015 (WDR/GWI ). 63.6% of the total capacity is produced by membrane processes and 34.8% by thermal processes (Fig. 1a). 60% of the feed water is from seawater and 21.5% from brackish water and the remaining is from surface water and wastewater (Fig. 1b).Over 66%of the desalinated water is used for municipalities and 23.5% for industry. These figures are susceptible for quick changes as desalination market is growing very fast with an annual growth rate of about 55%. Fig. 1 a Left and b right: installed capacity by technology and feed water type

4 2746 N. Drouiche et al. 2.1 History of Desalination and Actual Production Capacity in Algeria Algeria started investing in various desalination technologies since the sixties but mostly for industrial use as shown in Table 1 (Assessment of sea water desalination activities ). Most of the plants are owned by the Algerian National Oil Company, Sonatrach, and another major player the National Power Company, Sonelgaz (Sadi and Kehal 2002; Algerian Energy Company (AEC) 2011). The new desalination program launched by the Algerian Government is carried out by the Algerian Energy Company (AEC) and the Algerian Water Authority Algerienne des Eaux (ADE) on a joint venture basis. Sixteen mega-plants with capacities ranging from 100,000 to 500,000 m 3 /day were launched (Table 2) (Algerian Energy Company (AEC) 2011). All these plants are based on Reverse Osmosis (RO) Table 1 Details of some old desalination plants installed for industrial use Location Capacity (m 3 /day) User Process Operating year Marsa el Hadjadj 500 Power TC 1987 Arzew 500 Industry TC 1990 Arzew 720 Industry MSF 1970 Arzew 960 Industry MSF 1971 Arzew 961 Power Other 1982 Arzew 1,100 Industry MSF 1977 Arzew 1,200 Industry TC 1982 Skikda 1,440 Industry MSF 1970 Arzew 1,440 Industry TC 1989 Arzew 1,560 Industry TC 1989 Arzew 1,720 Industry TC 1989 Arzew 1,920 Industry MSF 1977 Algiers 2,000 Industry MSF 1979 Ras Djinet 2,000 Industry MSF 1985 Jijel 2,000 Power MSF 1992 Arzew 2,000 Industry TC 1993 Bethioua 2,000 Industry MSF 1994 Ghazaouet 2,000 Industry TC 1994 Marsa el Hadjadj 2,000 Power MSF 1994 Arzew 2,000 Industry MSF 1977 Algiers 2,400 Industry TC 2000 Skikda 2,896 Industry TC 1989 Arzew 2,980 Industry TC 1982 Arzew 3,000 Industry MSF 1969 Bethioua 3,000 Industry MSF 1994 Arzew 3,264 Industry MSF 1980 Arzew 3,840 Industry MSF 1977 Annaba 5,000 Industry TC 1990 Arzew 5,678 Industry MSF 1994 Skikda 5,760 Industry TC 1993 Annaba 14,100 Industry oil MSF 1978 Skikda 24,000 Industry MSF 1977 MSF Multi Stage Flash, TC Thermo-compression

5 Fast Growing Seawater Desalination Capacity in Algeria 2747 Table 2 Plants in commissioning and under construction as of March 2011 Location State Contract type Capacity (m 3 /day) Skikda Recently commissioned/in operation BOO 100,000 (SWRO) Souk Tlata Recently commissioned/in operation BOO 200,000 (SWRO) Beni Saf Recently commissioned/in operation BOO 200,000 (SWRO) Tlemcen-Honaine Under construction BOO 200,000 (SWRO) Cap Djinet Under construction BOO 100,000 (SWRO) Mostaganem Under construction BOO 200,000 (SWRO) Douaouda Under construction DBOO 100,000 (SWRO) Zeralda Under construction DBOO 100,000 (SWRO) Tenes Under construction BOO 200,000 (SWRO) Sidna Ouchaa I II Under construction BOO 150,000 (SWRO) El Taref Under construction DBOO 100,000 (SWRO) Fouka Under construction BOO 120,000 (SWRO) Oued Sebt Under construction DBOO 100,000 (SWRO) Maqtaa a Under construction BOO 500,000 (SWRO) a Jijel Planning 100,000 (SWRO) Bejaia Planning 100,000 (SWRO) Total 2,570,000 a World s largest RO plant technology except one plant which is located at the Sonatrach industrial zone of Arzew which is based on Multi Stage Flash (MSF) and produces 90,000 m 3 /day of distillate and 314 MW. Five of these projects are in operation including the MSF plant, Hamma, Souk Tlata and Beni Saf SWRO plants with a total capacity of 200,000 m 3 /day each and Skikda plant with a total capacity of 100,000 m 3 /day, and the other plants are either in commissioning or under construction, including the world s largest seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) plant with a total capacity of half million m 3 /day which is located in Maqtaa (West of the country). The actual total desalinated water capacity including the five recent mega-projects described above is 1,461,920 m 3 /day (Table 3). About 61% of the desalinated water is produced by RO and 32% by MSF using 77% seawater as feed, 15% brackish water and the rest is from rivers. More than 70% of the desalinated water is used for municipality purpose and 27% for industrial use. Table 3 Actual desalination capacity as of March 2011 Process Source Capacity (m 3 /day) MSF Seawater 312,110 MED Seawater 955 VC Seawater 34,548 VC Brackish water 1,497 RO Seawater 895,000 RO Brackish water 122,173 RO River 52,800 RO Not known 20,000 ED Brackish water 21,876 Other technologies Seawater 961 Total 1,461,920

6 2748 N. Drouiche et al. 3 Plants in Commission and Under Construction Thirteen large scale projects are under construction and some of them in commissioning in different Algerian large cities (Table 2. In the coming years the Algerian total production capacity will reach about 3.5 million cubic meters per day of fresh water to satisfy the water needs for the population living within 50 km from the Mediterranean coastline (Fig. 2). With this huge program and considering the contracted desalination projects worldwide, Algeria passed from rank 8 to rank 6 (Figs. 3 and 4) and became one of the fastest growing desalination capacity in the world along with Australia and Spain (Figs. 5 and 6) (WDR/GWI ). It is important to mention that all these plants are under BOO/DBOO (Build Own Operate/Design Build Own Operate) contracts type except the Kahrama MSF plant which is under IWPP (Independent Water and Power Procurement) contract type. The Algerian decision makers see that under BOO contract they will avoid any failure in operating these plants as this will be the duty of the construction (or subcontractors) companies. This is mainly due to the lack of local skilled manpower to operate these plants (Mahmoudi et al. 2009; Sadi and Kehal 2002; Ghaffour 2009). Table 4 gives the profile of forecast capacity growth (including private inland brackish water projects) in the next 4 years (Water Desalination Report 2011). It is expected that distillation projects will be under IWPP contract type and RO ones under BOO or BOOT (Build Own Operate Transfer) contract types with a possibility to build the future projects (Jijel and Bejaia SWRO plants presented in Table 2) by Sonatrach who is planning to establish a local construction company in order to localize desalination technology as they have a wide experience in oil, gas Fig. 2 Large scale seawater desalination plants location

7 Fast Growing Seawater Desalination Capacity in Algeria 2749 Fig. 3 Top 10 countries by total installed capacity since 1945 Fig. 4 Top 10 countries by total installed capacity since 2003 Fig. 5 Annual contracted capacity by region

8 2750 N. Drouiche et al. Fig. 6 Annual contracted capacity in Spain, Algeria, and Australia and process industry. This initiative is supported by the Government as it is part of the strategy to build human capacity in desalination. 4 General Survey for Desalination Between 2002 and 2004, a general study on desalination has been carried out by the Ministry of Water Resources with the aim to define a desalination strategy for the short, medium and long terms. The study was focused on 20 localities (called Wilayas) representing the following five regions (Fig. 7) which include 14 costal and six inland Wilayas (Mahmoudi et al. 2009; Algerian Water Authority: Algerienne des Eaux (ADE) 2011). Oran region: including Tlemcen, Ain Temouchent, Oran, Mostaganem and Mascara. Chlef region: including Relizane Chlef and Ain Defla. Algiers region: including Tipaza, Algiers, Boumerdes, Tizi Ouzou, Bejaia, Medea, Blida and Bouira. Table 4 Profile of forecast capacity growth (including private inland brackish water projects) RO 1,658,000 m 3 /day 2,558,000 m 3 /day MSF 135,000 m 3 /day 45,000 m 3 /day MED 46,800 m 3 /day 78,000 m 3 /day Source: seawater 1,599,600 m 3 /day 2,433,000 m 3 /day Source: brackish water 240,200 m 3 /day 248,000 m 3 /day Plants size < 2,000 m 3 /day 1% 0% Plants size 2,000 10,000 m 3 /day 9% 9% Plants size > 10,000 m 3 /day 90% 91% Total 1,839,800 m 3 /day 2,681,000 m 3 /day

9 Fast Growing Seawater Desalination Capacity in Algeria 2751 Fig. 7 Geographical distribution of the five regions Constantine region: including Jijel, Skikda, Annaba and Tarf. Sahara region (based mainly on brackish water desalination and water transfer including the longest water transfer pipe of 700 km, from In Salah to Tamanrasset city, which was recently commissioned). The objective of this study was based mainly on the needs of assessment including domestic, industrial and agricultural, identification of mobilization and transfer infrastructure (dams and piping), assessment of water resources and evaluation of non-conventional water resources. The results of this investigation allowed to achieve the following statements: The available resources are used in priority for water supply to meet the actual urgent needs. The remaining water which is added to the potential of treated water is then supplied to industrial zones. This comparison was made for the two climatic conditions (medium and dry). In addition, the balance sheet analysis and the strategy developed to cope with this situation have yielded the following conclusions: The current situation of water supply and irrigation in the north is very worrying due to the unequal distribution of resources and lack of rain leading to a major risk of large deficits. This situation will be improved in the future thanks to conventional resources that are mobilized by the new dams which are under construction and planned. However, significant doubts still persist, at: Rainfall Project implementation Physical losses Overexploitation of groundwater The quality of surface water Distribution of water The above criteria and deep analysis of the situation led the authorities to be very cautious, therefore proposed a strategy for development of non-conventional resources mainly seawater desalination.

10 2752 N. Drouiche et al. Fig. 8 Water transfer/distribution strategy 5 The Major Themes of the Strategy and the Benefits of Desalination in Algeria To ensure water resources for the expansion of large-scale irrigation, the Ministry of Water Resources plans to transfer some of the water reserves of the coastal dams to the Tell Atlas area, and the excess will then be transferred to the High Plains region (Fig. 8). The shortage in the coastal region would then be compensated by desalination of seawater and water conservation, with the latter option being the priority (Bessenasse et al. 2010). The benefits of using desalination in Algeria could be summarized as follow: Algeria has a coastline of 1,200 km. The sea is a source virtually non-polluting and inexhaustible. The majority of the population (80%) as well as industry which consume large amounts of water (industrial areas and big hotels) are located near the sea, thereby further reducing the water cost by avoiding the cost of water transfer. The field of desalination technology has tremendously improved and its cost decreased significantly in the last years (Reddy and Ghaffour 2007). 6 Emergency Seawater Desalination Program Until the severe drought of the last decade, Algeria had concentrated its water resources planning on development of dams and reservoirs. When the severe drought occurred, decision makers were forced to study the possibility to use desalination more closely and the idea was not easily accepted at that time. Before planning for the large scale plants, the Ministry of Water Resources through ADE launched an emergency program to cater the huge deficit in certain regions. This program

11 Fast Growing Seawater Desalination Capacity in Algeria 2753 includes construction of 21 small-scale (mono-block) SWRO desalination plants with a total capacity of 57,500 m 3 /day. The capacities of these plants were either 2,500 m 3 /day or 5,000 m 3 /day. This urgent action was not sufficient to resolve water shortage in these regions and showed several operation failures due to lack of skilled operators, thus it was decided to build larger desalination plants with operation and maintenance contracts with stakeholders. The deal for the project has been concluded and signed between ADE, from one side and the following from the other side: 1. The National Company Hydro-Traitement since May 11, The German Company Linde-KCA since May 11, 2002 (Algerian Water Authority: Algerienne des Eaux (ADE) 2011). 7 Cost Recovery Cost identification and cost evaluation are very important to the cost recovery analysis. The full cost of a water project consists of the capital cost, operation and maintenance (O&M) cost, opportunity cost, economic externalities and environmental externalities. But the calculation of all the cost components for complying with the full cost recovery is always difficult (Reddy and Ghaffour 2007; Renzetti 1999). Pricing is the vital issue for the recovery of the full cost. Basically, in terms of economic principle, the price is determined by supply and demand. However as water has a special economic characteristic, water pricing is more complex than general goods (Tsagarakis 2005). In Algeria, water pricing is fixed by the Government and any extra production cost is covered as subsidy. A decree (Decree of January 9, 2005) determines the rules of utility rates of water supply and sanitation and their related prices. Concerning the water produced by desalination, the tariff (real cost of production) is in the range of DZD (Algerian Dinar) (1 USD is approx. 75 DZD) for SWRO and DZD for MSF and the used Power costs between DZD 2 3 per kwh. The difference is covered by the support of the Government as subsidy (Seawater and Brackish Water Desalination in the Middle East 2004; Ministry of Water Resources: Ministère des Resources en Eaux (MRE) 2011). The cost of water and energy purchase/production agreement between the Government (through AEC, ADE and Sonatrach as guarantee body) and the construction companies (including operation and maintenance contract) is part of the main projects contract type discussed above. 8 Conclusion Desalination technologies proved to be a techno-economical solution to supply potable water for municipality and industry with reasonable cost and delivery time. However, the other available water resources should also be taken into consideration as an integrated solution by: Mobilizing conventional water by dams, drilling wells and transfers. Wastewater Reuse (domestic and industrial).

12 2754 N. Drouiche et al. Saving water (rehabilitation of network, generalization of water meter, application of new rates and the fight against illegal taps/wells). With the continuous severe drought, the Algerian policy makers launched an ambitious program implementing a large number of mega-scale desalination plants in order to alleviate the serious water shortage in cities and towns along the Mediterranean coast. Over 2 million cubic meters per day of desalinated seawater was installed or is under construction. A new strategy of water transfer was adopted to supply potable water in the inland regions. The main objective of the desalination program, is to assure the needs for potable water of the population, assure an efficient management of the resources by putting in place good professionals and to free water from reservoirs in the foothills of the Mediterranean so that it can be pumped up for large-scale irrigation in the High Plains region. This should contribute to slow down migration from the High Plains to the crowded coastal plain. References Algerian Energy Company (AEC) (2011) website: Algerian Water Authority: Algerienne des Eaux (ADE) (2011) website: Assessment of sea water desalination activities in the Mediterranean region and environmental impacts, Sea water desalination in the Mediterranean, Assessment and guidelines map technical reports series no 139 unep/map Athens (2003) Bessenasse M, Kettab A, Moulla AS (2010) Seawater desalination: study of three coastal stations in Algiers region. Desalination 250: ESCWA (2009) Role of desalination in addressing water scarcity. E/ESCWA/SDPD/2009/4 ISSN ISBN , United Nations Publication Sales No. E.09.II.L.7 Ghaffour N (2009) The challenge of capacity-building strategies and perspectives for desalination for sustainable water use in MENA. Desalin Water Treat 5(1 3):48 53 Iglesias A, Garrote L, Flores F, Moneo M (2007) Challenges to manage the risk of water scarcity and climate change in the Mediterranean. Water Resour Manage 21(4): Krysanova V, Dickens C, Timmerman J, Varela-Ortega C, Schlüter M et al (2010) Cross-comparison of climate change adaptation strategies across large river basins in Europe, Africa and Asia. Water Resour Manage 24(14): Mahmoudi H, Abdellah O, Ghaffour N (2009) Capacity building strategies and policy for desalination using renewable energies in Algeria. Renew Sustain Energy Rev 13: Ministry of Water Resources: Ministère des Resources en Eaux (MRE) (2011) website: mre.gov.dz/ Mohamed MM, Al-Mualla AA (2010) Water demand forecasting in Umm Al-Quwain (UAE) using the IWR-MAIN specify forecasting model. Water Resour Manage 24(14): Office National des statistiques (ONS) (2011) website: Reddy KV, Ghaffour N (2007) Overview of the cost of desalinated water and costing methodologies. Desalination 205: Renzetti S (1999) Evaluating the welfare effects of reforming municipal water prices. J Environ Econ Manage Res 22(2): Sadi A, Kehal S (2002) Retrospectives and potential use of saline water desalination in Algeria. Desalination 152:51 56 Seawater and Brackish Water Desalination in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia, Final Report, December 2004, website: Tsagarakis KP (2005) New directions in water economics, finance and statistics. Water Sci Technol Res 5(6):1 15 Water Desalination Report (2011) WDR/GWI ( ) IDA Desalination Yearbook and market profile Wheida E, Verhoeven R (2007) An alternative solution of the water shortage problem in Libya. Water Resour Manage 21(6):

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