The Public Authority for Water (DIAM) is exploring desalination through solar evaporation to help sustain supplies to remote communities located beyond the reach of the country’s water distribution grids.
The company in its 2019 Annual Report issued recently stated “Diam is working with a partner to develop a solar desalination plant, where the solar energy is harnessed directly to produce fresh water through evaporation. A number of sites are being assessed to enable the development of this innovative technology”.
“Diam has instigated a number of projects to increase the efficient utilisation of energy in the organization, which include optimising the overall production and pumping energy use, utilising solar power for some pumping stations and investigation to harnessing solar desalination.”,Mohammed bin Abdullah al Mahrouqi, Chairman, Diam said.
Diam in its report stated that “Locations to further expand this project have been identified following the successful pilot project at Alsjjani. These projects are expected to complete during 2020”.
“In the first phase of the project, the company carried out a detailed analysis of the production and supply network and estimated the reduction in energy bills that could be achieved by monitoring and controlling the network in an automated and optimal process,” said Diam.
He added that “Building on its energy conservation efforts, the Authority recently entered into an energy optimisation performance-based contract with a specialised company to optimise the production and supply of water to our customers in Muscat.”
The Authority also added that “The analysis showed that minimizing pumping and reducing water production during the peak summer electricity tariff periods together with abstracting water from the most cost effective plant will generate significant savings for Diam (and may negate the need to build additional peak power capacity in Oman). The target level of savings has now been guaranteed by a specialized company and we are now moving to the implementation phase,”.