IDE Larnaca Plant Awarded Cyprus Industry Innovation award
The Cyprus Employers & Industrialists Federation has recognised excellence in industry with The 2007 Best Innovation Award to IDE Technologies Larnaca Desalination Plant. The award was presented to IDE LWP Plant Manager, Dr. Erineos Koutsakos by the President of Cyprus Mr. Demetris Christofias. In a special ceremony held at the Hilton hotel, in Nicosia on Thursday 26th June 2008.
The Innovation In Industry competition has been held for the 2nd consecutive year with 32 entries covering all sectors of the industry. IDE's Larnaca Desalination Plant (LWP) won the prize in the Manufacturing sector category. The plant has been operating for seven years with record performance due to innovation and ongoing improvements.
The Larnaca Desalination Plant consists of 5 main process stages:
Seawater Intake, Pre-treatment, Reverse Osmosis, Post-treatment, Storage and Distribution. The plant has specifically excelled in the Membrane Management System (MMS) which has been conducted.
A well performing Desalination Plant relies very much on the maintenance of the membranes RO systems. The Larnaca Desalination Plant has over 7,500 membranes. As part of the wider strategy developed by the company for operating the plant, the complete Membrane Management System has been designed, developed and implemented. Such an activity requires that all aspects relating to membranes were identified and then continuously evaluated, following a well defined stepwise time procedure for sustaining membrane performance.
The result of the successful implementation of the MMS was to improve the performance of the first stage such that the second stage (operated to improve the water quality e.g. boron removal) was not needed for more than 6 months of the year.
The benefits of such achievement were to:
(a) The plant produced 7.5% more water than its specifications i.e. in 2007 the plant produced 18.2 million m3 instead of the contractual agreement of 16.9 m3
(b) The increased water production was complemented by a reduction of 2-3% specific energy (Kwh/m3), which amount of million of Euros savings to the government funds.
(c) Possibly the most important benefit was the reduction of the CO2 emissions (relative to energy savings) per cubic meter produced. The Larnaca Desalination Plant, with it's innovative improvements, and as the 2nd largest energy consumer in Cyprus, has been able to reduce thousands of tons of CO2 emission over the last 3 years.
The Larnaca Desalination Plant operates 24 hours per day , 365 days per year producing on average 50,000 m3/d. The Plant's high performance and its achievements have been recognised world wide and have been described and presented in many international publications and seminars respectively.