IDE & The Environment

Products for a Greener Planet
IDE has a four-decade record of commitment to the environment. IDE’s solutions have been designed to alleviate macro environmental challenges, and the company invests continuously to reduce the environmental footprint of its solutions. In IDE’s view, this makes business sense as well as moral sense: in fact, the company’s reputation rests on its success in continuously improving energy efficiency and reducing operating costs.

Underlying IDE’s commitment to the environment are its proprietary compressing technologies – breakthrough developments that enable IDE to slash the energy required to heat, cool and evaporate water.

IDE’s first products to leverage this technology were its thermal desalination solutions, an area in which IDE has achieved world leadership. Expanding its eco-friendly product lines, IDE has begun introducing exciting new solutions, including chemical-free treatment of polluted effluents, district heating, mine cooling, load-shifting solutions, snow-creation and more.

IDE Desalination Solutions
IDE’s desalination solutions make it affordable for municipalities and industries in arid regions to transform seawater into plentiful fresh water, whether for household/drinking, agriculture and/or industrial use. To date, IDE’s industry-leading thermal and membrane desalination solutions have made it practical for about 400 customers in 40 countries to create enough fresh water to meet their needs: in fact, the installed capacity of IDE plants is over 2,000,000 cubic meters of fresh water per day, thereby alleviating distress and supporting regional development.

Through continual “green-thinking” technological advancements, IDE has achieved the industry’s lowest energy consumption for all three dominant desalination technologies, while also reducing associated greenhouse gas emissions and waste.

Re-use of waste heat and low-grade steam:
IDE’s MED thermal desalination units are powered by the waste heat and/or low-grade steam of other industrial processes. In so doing, IDE's units multiply the work accomplished per unit of energy, reduce the carbon footprint and waste heat emissions of the overall industrial eco-system, and increase energy efficiency.
Reducing the chemical footprint:
The use of a proprietary Boron Removal System, Direct Osmosis
Cleaning (DOC) and other process innovations are leading to a reduction in the use of chemicals in
desalination systems.

Using solar energy:
through recent advances, IDE’s systems can utilize the waste heat of a solar field
(generated as a by-product of the operation of CPVs-concentrating photovoltaic collectors). This
waste heat can be used to drive MED thermal desalination units or IDE's unique heat pump-based
electricity generators, thereby increasing the output of electricity while reducing the emission of
heat into the atmosphere.
 
New “Green” Products

Effluent Treatments:
IDE produces highly effective industrial evaporation solutions for meeting tough environmental regulations. The use of these products eliminates the discharge of polluting effluents into lakes, rivers and oceans – all while saving substantial energy compared with conventional solutions.

Man-Made Snow Machines:
IDE’s man-made snow technologies offer the largest production capacity (200-2,000 meters of snow per unit per day) at any ambient temperature – all without the use of chemicals.

Mine Cooling:
IDE’s snow/ice machines are re-setting the bar for energy-efficiency in Deep Mine Cooling. With a capacity of 850 tons of refrigeration per plant, these systems consume half the energy associated with conventional technologies.

Thermal Energy Storage/Electricity Load Shifting Solutions:
By using water as a refrigerant, IDE’s groundbreaking thermal energy storage solutions are able to use 30% less energy than competing technologies. This makes them practical solutions for using energy generated during off-peak hours to supply peak-time demand.

Heat Pumps for District Heating/Cooling:
In cold regions, the temperature of seawater in the winter is generally higher than ambient temperatures. IDE’s heat pumps are able to leverage this differential temperature to create district heating or district cooling in an energy-efficient and cost-efficient manner: in fact, IDE’s energy-efficient process requires half the consumption of natural gas compared to conventional radiator and other solutions.
 
IDE has been awarded ISO 14001:2004 certification after its Environmental System was found to comply with the requirements of this standard.
To view IDE's ISO 14001 Certificate please click here.