Japan’s largest public management organisation promoting research and development, New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organisation (NEDO) and Hitachi Ltd, have started a demonstration project for a seawater desalination and water reuse integrated system in the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality in Durban, South Africa.
Under the initiative, the two companies recently started demonstration operation of the system at the demonstration site of a waste water treatment plant in the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality.
This demonstration project uses a system developed during a demonstration project by NEDO in Japan, and construct demonstration facilities aiming for desalinating 6,250 tonsof drinking water from seawater and treated and discharged waste water every day, while saving 30% more energycompared to conventional seawater desalination systems and reducing the impact on the marine environment.
“In
the future, we plan to introduce this technology in South Africa and to other
regions with serious water shortages, thus contributing to the development of
water infrastructure and industry,” NEDO said in a statement.”South
Africa not only suffers from a serious water shortage due to large-scale
droughts and other factors, but also has a power shortage that forces them to
frequently conduct load shedding.”
NEDO said it is against this background that it engaged in a seawater
desalination and water reuse integrated system demonstration project to solve
the South Africa’s water shortage issues and to promote the introduction of
energy-saving water production technology.