Handling the Costs of Power Plant Wastewater Treatment

Discover what new methods power plants are adopting to significantly reduce their ongoing wastewater treatment costs while maintaining a reliable, high-quality water supply.

Reduce Wastewater Operational Costs

by as much as 50% 

One way power companies are reducing their wastewater costs is by investing in equipment that enables them to reuse water from their cooling tower blowdown stream.  At first glance, the upfront investment into reusing blowdown stream water looks much more expensive than traditional wastewater treatment solutions. But when you compare this against other solutions over a longer period of time, you can clearly see it delivers significant savings in total cost of ownership well into the future. Power plants using this approach can benefit from:

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Lower water purchasing costs
With more water on hand, there is no need to continuously purchase large amounts of fresh water.
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Lower water discharge costs

As less wastewater needs to be discharged, it’s just reused and put back into the system.
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Extended life of existing equipment

There is no rush to refurbish or retrofit with new parts as your equipment lasts longer.

This means that power plants can recoup their investment costs in as little as 2 years, while collecting the savings for many more years to come.

Power Plants are Feeling the Heat

As the world’s desire to preserve the environment has escalated, power plants are now being hounded with increasingly strict regulations to govern their wastewater discharge.

On top of this, the costs of fresh water – which is growing scarcer by the minute – and the costs of wastewater discharge, are rising.

Meaning that power plants are now scrambling to find innovative technology and methods to help treat their wastewater discharge. The problem is that many power plants, especially older ones, need to carry out expensive refurbishments and retrofits – and in some cases, both – so they can adopt newer methods and processes.

How Power Plants can Reuse their Blowdown Streams

IDE Technologies, a global leader in advanced water treatment solutions, enables power plants to effectively reuse their blowdown stream using two types of technology:

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MAXH2O Desalter

The IDE MAXH2O Desalter is a state-of-the-art RO solution that uses an integrated salt precipitation cycle for high recovery applications.

It operates by moving salt precipitation outside the membrane process, which significantly reduces scaling potential on the membranes.

This allows the RO water treatment ability to deliver the industry’s highest recovery rates while overcoming the limitations of membrane scaling, and organic and inorganic particle biofouling. It also means less industrial wastewater treatment chemicals are needed. Making it an excellent solution for complex industrial wastewater and brackish water facilities that need to operate at high recovery.

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Pulse Flow RO Technology

IDE’s Pulse Flow RO (PFRO) Technology further revolutionizes the conventional RO desalination process by moving from a continuous flow to a pulse flow.

This delivers significantly more product water from the brine flow ,a further 80% in fact. It also delivers up to 98% higher recovery rates, as proven in IDE Technologies’ new plants in Sorek B (Israel) and Formosa Plastics (Taiwan). PFRO Technology also prevents bio and other types of fouling.

Not only does this reduce costs through lower power consumption due to intermittent brine pumping and diminished pressure drops in stages, but also reduces equipment costs, as fewer vessels and membranes are required.

 

Together, these technologies have enabled multiple power stations around the world to reduce their ongoing wastewater costs, while further reducing their impact on the environment.

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Cutting Your Power Plant Water Treatment Costs

 

Learn More on Wastewater Treatment Solutions for Power Plants

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