Energy Recovery announced contract awards totaling over $12 million for its PX® Pressure Exchanger® (PX) energy recovery devices for three seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination projects in the United Arab Emirates.
The plants include capacity totaling close to 1 million cubic meters per day and the orders are expected to ship by Q4 2024.
One of the recently awarded contracts will include PX installations on a floating desalination barge in the Arabian Gulf, which will produce fresh water offshore before pumping it back to the mainland. Offshore desalination facilities eliminate the need for swaths of coastal land, which is often limited and expensive, making it a viable option for densely populated coastal regions. The contracts in the United Arab Emirates will incorporate both the PX Q400 and PX Q300 models, which offer operational sound levels at just 79 decibels. This will also create safer and better workplace environments for these SWRO plants.
“Energy Recovery has been the trusted gold standard in energy recovery solutions for the seawater reverse osmosis desalination industry for well over a decade,” said Rodney Clemente, Energy Recovery Senior Vice President of Water. “Our first large-scale reference in the region was contracted in 2008 and we have since grown our contracted capacity to approximately 5 million cubic meters per day underscoring our market leadership position in the United Arab Emirates. As the global leader, we continue to innovate for, and partner with, our customers to deliver best-in-class products that can be used to serve a variety of industries and plant sizes around the globe. We are truly proud to be able to partner alongside industry leaders in driving sustainable solutions that help meet growing global freshwater challenges head-on.”
Energy Recovery’s PX can reduce energy use by up to 60% in SWRO desalination facilities and provides the lowest lifecycle cost of any energy recovery device available on the market – significant savings that make SWRO desalination an attractive option to governments seeking to drought-proof their water infrastructure. The announced contracts in the United Arab Emirates are projected to save over 416 gigawatt hours per year of energy, which avoids 201,265 tons per year of harmful CO2 emissions; the equivalent of over 36,000 homes electricity use for one year.
