The first phase of a new desalination plant in Bandar Abbas, Hormozgan Province, was launched Tuesday.
With a total capacity of 100,000 cubic meters of water per day, the unit will supply a part of the southern port city population with potable water from the Persian Gulf, Mehr News Agency reported.
“A private sector project, the first phase was completed at a cost of $22 million. Using reverse osmosis technology, the plant purifies 20,000 cubic meters of water a day,” Amin Qasmi, managing director of Hormozgan Water and Wastewater Company said.
Reverse osmosis is a water purification technology that uses a semipermeable membrane to remove ions, molecules and larger particles from drinking water.
“The unit includes six kilometers of pipeline, a storage tank with a capacity of 10,000 cubic meters, a pumping station plus pre-treatment and post-treatment systems,” the official said.
Qasmi added that the project will become fully operational by next year with a total investment of $200 million.
When all the phases are up and running, 60% of the population in Bandar Abbas will have access to fresh water.
There are 17 desalination units in the province producing 62,000 cubic meters of water per day.
Hormozgan has a population of 1.6 million and 1.1 million people are covered by the services of the provincial Water and Wastewater Company.
Decades of Drought
Two decades of drought in the southern province has had dire consequences on its water resources as 465 wells and 18 qanats have totally dried up, and the water level in 135 wells has dropped by a massive 70%.
To tackle the worsening water crisis across continents, desalination is becoming a viable option to produce water from the sea. In the coastal regions where salt water is in abundance, large and semi-large desalination plants are preferred.
Water desalination plants now provide a considerable amount of potable water in the northern and southern coastal region in Iran.
Another desalination plant with a capacity of one million cubic meters in Bandar Abbas is under construction and is expected to go on stream by 2021.
Over half of the output from the plant will be supplied to Kerman and Yazd provinces in central Iran long struggling with serious water shortages and the only solution is said to be water from the Persian Gulf and Sea of Oman.
About 40% of the plant’s production has been planned for Hormozgan Province. After completion of the project, the potable water needs of the important port city will be met entirely from seawater.
“Currently, wells and dams provide 71% of the water used in the province. Seventeen desalination units are in different stages of construction in Hormozgan and it is estimated that by 2022, use of underground water resources will decline to 34% while the share of purified water will rise to 66%,” Qasmi said.
Experts believe Iran's fledgling desalination industry can and should meet the need for potable water in the Persian Gulf littoral provinces. As a result, tapping into the sea to produce clean water is high on the Energy Ministry agenda as it is more viable for maintaining sustainable supply of water rather than depleting the fast dwindling underground tables, most of which are on the verge of drying up.
Iran produces 420,000 cubic meters of freshwater per day, or 148 million cubic meters per annum. Plans call for increasing daily desalination capacity to 600,000 cubic meters a day by 2022.
