Desalination 203 (2007) 75–81

Ashkelon desalination plant — A successful challenge

Bruno Sauvet-Goichon
Veolia Eau Solutions & Technologies (VWS), L’Aquarène - 1, place Montgolfier, 94417 Saint-Maurice Cedex, France
Tel. +33 (1) 45 11 55 55; email: bruno.sauvet-goichon@veoliawater.com

Received 16 February 2006; accepted 15 March 2006

Abstract
Ashkelon — the world’s largest reverse osmosis desalination plant — is providing successfully its full capacity
of drinking water (330,000 m3/d) at the lowest production cost for this type of project. The project has been developed
as a BOT (Build, Operate and Transfer) by a consortium made of three international companies: Veolia water, IDE
Technologies Ltd. and Elran Infrastructures Ltd. This paper will highlight the main points of this project.
Keywords: Ashkelon; Desalination; Reverse osmosis

1. Introduction • Limited availability of natural water resources

due to climatic factors (low precipitation level
The Ashkelon seawater reverse osmosis plant
and prolonged droughts);
is now producing at its full capacity. Awarded “De-
• Increase in demand for water due to population
salination Plant of the Year” through the Global
growth and economic development — 60%
Water Awards 2006 — organized by Global Water
more water required by 2020;
Intelligence publication, Ashkelon is the world’s
• Saline invasion into existing water resources
largest desalination plant operated with membrane
technology. Located in the south of Israel, Ashkelon plant
This plant is part of a desalination master plan alone is contributing at supplying large southern
launched by Israel in 2000 to help solve the coun- Israeli cities. This is around 15% of the water con-
try’s water resource problem. sumption in the domestic sector.
The water deficit is due to: The Ashkelon BOT project (Build, Operate and
• Drought conditions; Transfer) guarantees a water production capacity

Presented at EuroMed 2006 conference on Desalination Strategies in South Mediterranean Countries: Cooperation
between Mediterranean Countries of Europe and the Southern Rim of the Mediterranean. Sponsored by the
European Desalination Society and the University of Montpellier II, Montpellier, France, 21–25 May 2006.

0011-9164/07/$– See front matter © 2007 Published by Elsevier B.V.

doi:10.1016/j.desal.2006.03.525
76 B. Sauvet-Goichon / Desalination 203 (2007) 75–81

of up to 110 million m3/y of drinking water. Accor- meate water re-mineralization treatment and brine
ding to the BOT contract, the state of Israel is com- disposal. The plant is connected to the electrical
mitted to purchase (take or pay) 100 million m3/y. grid, but a dedicated combined cycle gas turbines
The plant is owned and operated by VID Desalina- (cogeneration) power station has also been install-
tion Company Ltd., a consortium made of three ed. 56 MW of the 80 MW produced by the power
international sponsors, who have created a special station will be used by the desalination process.
purpose company (SPC) to carry out the project: The use of proven RO technology and advanc-
Veolia Water, and two Israeli partners, IDE Tech- ed recovery system to reduce operating costs has
nologies Ltd. and Elran Infrastructures Ltd. The achieved a very competitive price, one of the low-
construction of the plant was achieved by OTID, est water prices ( $0.53/m3) offered for this type
a consortium of IDE Technologies Ltd. (50%) and of project. About 42% of this price covers energy
OTV (50%). The plant is operated by ADOM, a costs, variable operation and maintenance (O&M)
consortium of Veolia Water (49.5%), IDE Techno- costs, membranes and chemicals costs. 58% co-
logies Ltd. (40.5%) and Elran Infrastructures Ltd. vers capital expenditure and fixed SPC and O&M
(10%). At the end of the 25-year period of agree- costs.
ment, the plant will be transferred to the Govern-
ment of Israel.
2. Plant design (Fig. 2)
The total project costs are approximately $212
million, funded by a mixture of equity (23%) and The first agreement for 50 million m3/y was
credit facility (77%) provided by lenders (banks signed in November 2001. A second agreement
and institutional). was signed in April 2002 to produce additional
The plant includes seawater pumping, raw 50 million m3/y. For that reason, the plant has been
water pretreatment, membrane desalination, per- built as two identical facilities, each operated to

Fig. 1. General view of Ashkelon desalination plant.

 B. Sauvet-Goichon / Desalination 203 (2007) 75–81 77

Fig. 2. Plant design.

provide 165,000 m3/d of drinking water. The sea- — length 1000 m), a configuration designed to
water intake and its associated pumping station, secure the supply of seawater. The polyethylene
and the final post-treatment (re-mineralization and type piping is simple to clean by pigging and mini-
final sterilization) are shared but have been de- mizes the marine growth attachment to the pipe.
signed to ensure separate operation of each plant.
Reliability of equipment and continuity of ope- 2.2. Seawater intake and pre-treatment
ration were key factors throughout the detailed
The intake pumping station (Fig. 3) is equipped
design process to ensure the best availability of
with five vertical pumps supplying 35,000 m3/h.
the plant.
From the pumping station, raw seawater is sent
to the pre-treatment process stage through two
2.1. Offshore intake pipe
separate lines, each one feeding 20 dual media
Due to site constraints and scale effect of the gravity filters. Chemicals are added and mixed
plant capacity, the decision was made to build an through static mixers before the filtration stage.
open sea intake facility. This system includes three The use of ferric sulfate as coagulant, and sul-
parallel high density polyethylene pipes (DN 1600 furic acid as pH adjustment, facilitates obtaining
78 B. Sauvet-Goichon / Desalination 203 (2007) 75–81

Fig. 3. Seawater intake. Fig. 4. Dual media filters.

a good SDI reduction through the pretreatment

step. Additional chemicals injection equipments
(shock chlorination, polymer) are installed in case
of necessity due to seawater deterioration.
The chemicals treatment system is designed
for a rate adjustment to the flow and offers calcu-
lated redundancy to ensure a high availability to
the system.
Filtration (Fig. 4) is performed through dual-
media gravity filters containing quartz sand and
anthracite media. The filtration velocity is 8 m/h.
This low velocity associated with a long retention
time, a distribution and collecting under-drain sys-
tem designed to provide equidistribution of the
water through the filtration media, allows achiev-
ing a high filtration efficiency. Even with storm
turbidity levels, the filtrated seawater is perfectly
suitable for the membranes step.
Fig. 5. Micronic filters.
The filters are automatically backwashed every
two days.
A set of cartridges Micronics filters (Fig. 5)
forms a second filtration stage as final safety bar-
and energy recovery devices, designed as pressure
rier before the membranes.
centre and energy recovery centre, can be operated
independently of each other. This approach in-
2.3. Reverse osmosis
creases the flexibility of the plant and its effici-
The filtrated seawater flows to the reverse ency.
osmosis process through high-pressure pumps The desalination facility consists of a four-pass
(Fig. 6), associated with innovative and most effi- system. This unusual design came from the severe
cient Double Work Exchanger Energy Recovery requested permeate water quality (chloride less
(DWEER) devices (Fig. 7). High-pressure pumps than 20 ppm and boron less than 0.4 ppm).
 B. Sauvet-Goichon / Desalination 203 (2007) 75–81 79

Fig. 6. High pressure centre.

Fig. 8. First pass RO system.

meate, and can be mixed directly with the per-

meate water of the other stages.
• The rear permeate from the first stage feeds
the second pass which operates at a high pH
to increase the boron reject by the membranes.
This pass is operated at 85% recovery. The per-
meate of this stage is part of the final product.
• The brine of the second pass is sent as feed to
Fig. 7. Energy recovery centre. the third pass. This pass is operated at 85%
recovery and under low pH. Due to acidified
environment, there is no fear of scaling on the
membrane surface, even at high recovery and
• The first pass is a conventional seawater RO high brine concentration. But at low pH, boron
system (Fig. 8). It is operated with a recovery rejection is very low and boron partly remains
around 45%. A part of permeate is collected with the third pass permeate. Therefore this
from the feed side (front permeate) of the permeate cannot be considered as product
pressure vessels. This part has a lower conce- water and must be treated through the fourth
ntration of salts (boron) than the whole per- pass.
80 B. Sauvet-Goichon / Desalination 203 (2007) 75–81

• The fourth pass, operated at 90% recovery and drinking water quality standards and to prevent
high pH, completes the boron removal of the any corrosion effects in the distribution network.
second pass brine. Thus treated, the fourth pass
permeate is suitable to be mixed with the final
3. Ashkelon main innovations through the
product.
centre design approach
A “standard” two-pass scheme with the second Traditional concept of RO trains including a
pass brine directed to the feed of the first pass high-pressure pump, energy recovery turbine and
was not acceptable due to the too high boron con- membranes is not suitable for large-scale desali-
centration in this brine. Different alternatives were nation plants. A way to progress is to switch from
studied during the design stage, among which the local to central mode. Pumping seawater to high
discharge of the brine to the drain, or the use of pressure in a centralized form is more economical
boron selective ion-exchangers. Water cost was and the same applies to energy recovery.
the key parameter to determine the optimum pro- For each half plant, four high-pressure pumps
cess and design. form a pumping centre which supplies seawater
The desalination facility consists for each half to all RO trains through a common line. One pump
plant of sixteen RO trains for the first pass, four is installed as stand-by. Forty DWEER units form
trains for the second pass, one train for the third an energy recovery centre which collects pres-
pass and one train for the fourth pass. surized brine from all RO trains, transfers the ener-
The total plant makes use of 25,600 mem- gy to seawater and pumps it to all RO trains
branes of seawater type and 15,100 membranes through a common feed line. This approach allows
of brackish water type. FilmTec membranes have optimization of each system independently.
been selected for the RO process. Pump efficiency is highly a function of capa-
city. Pumps with high efficiency are found in a
range with high flow. The choice of Ashkelon
high-pressure pumps brought the maximum pos-
2.4. Post treatment
sible pump efficiency (88.5% at best point).
While the final water quality in terms of boron The energy recovery centre is based on forty
and chloride levels is achieved after the multiple DWEERs: ten blocks, four DWEERs in each
passes RO system, post-treatment with lime is block. One block is in stand-by. This approach
used to remineralise the product water before allows changing recovery in a wide range and an
distribution in the national water system. This increase of flexibility and efficiency in the system.
remineralisation and adjustment of alkalinity, The Ashkelon plant summary is presented in
hardness and pH are necessary to cope with the Table 1.
 B. Sauvet-Goichon / Desalination 203 (2007) 75–81 81

Table 1
Ashkelon desalination plant summary

Key data
Maximum total production capacity 110 million m3/y
Government purchase agreement 100 million m3/y
Water price $0.527/m3
Project cost NIS 1,000 million ( $212 million)
Plant footprint 75,000 m2 ( 300 × 200 m)
Power plant Dedicated gas turbine — 80 MW capacity
Grid connection 161 kV overhead line
Maximum nominal electrical consumption <3.9 kWh/m3
Water data
Feed seawater temperature 15–30°C
Feed seawater salinity 40,679 ppm TDS
Product water before post treatment <80 ppm TDS
<20 ppm Cl
<40 ppm Na
<0.4 ppm Boron
Product water after post-treatment <300 ppm TDS
Project time life
Contract awarded 3 September 2001
Financial agreement reached 22 January 2003
Notice to proceed issued 22 February 2003
Construction started April 2003
Sub phase 1–2 completion July 2005
Sub phase 3 — final completion December 2005
End of agreement/transfer date July 2027