Ermoupoli: The project to upgrade the desalination plant is progressing

The Environmental Impact Study of the project “Improvement, expansion and energy upgrade of the Hermoupolis Desalination plant, at Ampelaki on the island of Syros” was approved by the Municipal Committee of the Municipality of Syros – Ermoupolis.

The Environmental Impact Study concerns the improvement, expansion and energy upgrade of the Hermoupolis desalination plant and concerns exclusively the desalination facilities.

The scope of the project includes the improvement, expansion and energy upgrade of the existing desalination plant so that its total capacity amounts to a production of drinking water supply of 10,000 m3 per day. The existing licensed project is a seawater desalination unit with a capacity of 5,800m3 of produced water per day in the location of Ampelaki in the Municipality of Syros – Ermoupoli on the island of Syros.

For the purpose of improving and expanding the existing desalination plant, the total replacement of the water extraction works and the pretreatment equipment as well as the partial replacement and expansion of the reverse osmosis equipment are foreseen. The pre-treatment equipment will consist of four equivalent treatment lines with a final production capacity of 2,500m3/d of drinking water each. The new reverse osmosis equipment will consist of three equivalent treatment lines each capable of producing 2,000m3/d of potable water.

The improvement projects are:

1. Unification of pretreatment with the installation of a Central new seawater pretreatment unit.
2. Improvement of the existing seawater pretreatment system (sand filters) with new advanced technology (prefiltration with disk-type filters, ultrafiltration unit – UF).
3. New filtered water sedimentation tank enables independent operation of the ultrafiltration unit and the reverse osmosis units.
4. Construction of a new seawater pumping and tailings disposal system, improvement of the tailings disposal system through a new undersea pipeline.
5. Improvement of the desalinated water production process through a unified automation and control system for all units.

The expansion projects are:

The expansion concerns the increase of the capacity of the existing desalination units from 5,800 m3/d to 10,000 m3/d. The increase in capacity is achieved by replacing the existing units with 5 new ones with a capacity of 2,000 m3/d each.

The energy upgrade projects are:

High efficiency brine pressure energy recovery device (>95%), in order to reduce the energy spent on the production of desalinated water, a brine pressure energy recovery system is used. Thus, after leaving the pressure vessels, the brine will then pass through a pressure exchanger type energy recovery system. According to the study, because there will be a surplus of excavated products of the order of 4,080 m3, care must be taken to reuse the produced excavated products for the needs of the project itself as much as possible and the extra materials should be collected at the contractor’s responsibility and disposed of at a licensed non-hazardous solid waste collector.

Also because with the completion of the expansion works, ultrafiltration membranes and reverse osmosis membranes will be installed and their chemical cleaning is mandatory (necessary to increase the lifetime of the membranes and improve their performance), all necessary measures should be taken proper and environmentally acceptable management of leachates (temporary storage at the facility until their collection by licensed companies for recovery / recycling or safe final disposal).

This waste concerns waste from chemical cleaning of membranes, synthetic engine, gearbox and lubrication oils (from equipment maintenance. However, an accurate record must be made by an accredited body of the composition and condition of the plant and animal organisms of the benthos within a radius of 100m from the point of disposal of the brine.Also per year, measurements of the salinity of the seawater, in a radius of 100m from the point of disposal, both at the level of the disposal of the brine and in the area of ​​water extraction.

Dimitris Vambakouris

severomoments

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