Mr. Fernando Suarez
Founder and CEO of INEXA , Spain
Mr. Fernando Suarez is a master graduate in Chemical Engineer from the University of Wales. He initiated his career as a desalination project manager at an AGBAR subsidiary in the Canary Islands, Spain. Since early 2000´s founded INEXA company as a provider of specialized engineering services in desalination technology. In 2006, INEXA carried out the first energy audit in the known "Las Palmas III" SWRO Desalination facility (80,000 m3/d). INEXA has been certified by Bureau Veritas as energy auditing specialist company for water infrastructure since 2018. As well as Fernando has led numerous international projects as EPC contractor and consultancy with references in Middle East, Africa & South America; stressing his activity in SWRO plant retrofitting and O&M consulting. At the moment he holds the position as main technical consultant in a SWRO desalination project of 180,000 m3/d in Morocco.
Dec 6, 2023, 8:40AM–8:55AM EST
Optimization Methodology for design and performance of SWRO Desalination Plants
In many cases, we have encountered that design parameters in existing desalination plants, new tenders or projects do not follow any methodology for its optimization and are chosen arbitrarily. For example, some designers tend to compare the SEC values of several design options only for the RO process instead of the total SEC which includes the pretreatment energy costs. Conventionally among many professionals, is considered that the RO Process SEC shall determine the design of a RO plant and is a direct indication of an optimized SEC value for a whole system. In this presentation we will expose a design case where the Total SEC follows a different tendency than the RO Process SEC.
We describe an optional and state of art methodology for optimizing the design and/or performance of Sea Water Reverse Osmosis (hereinafter SWRO) desalination plants. In a nutshell, the optimization of the energy consumption parameters such as so-called the Specific Energy Consumption (hereinafter SEC) to minimize water production costs. In general, a minimized SEC is an indicator of optimum operation and maintenance practices, thus this method shall allow also plant operators to optimize their facilities.