Commercial solar desalination plant for California

HydroRevolution, a subsidiary of independent water producer WaterFX, has announced plans to build a commercial solar desalination plant in the Panoche Water and Drainage District in California’s Central Valley — said to be the first of its kind in the region.

The project is an expansion of a demonstration plant operated by WaterFX in the Panoche Water and Drainage District in 2013 and will operate using the same Aqua4 technology developed by WaterFX. It will provide a sustainable water source to local water districts by using solar energy to recycle salt-impaired water into freshwater.

The Aqua4 technology utilises large solar arrays to capture solar thermal energy from the sun. The sun heats mineral oil that then flows to the multi-effect distillation (MED) system that evaporates fresh water from the source water. Over 90% of the fresh water is recovered in this process, while the briny remainder can be further treated to produce minerals and salts as useable solid co-products.

“The demonstration plant proved that we can reliably treat drainage water and also showed that the treated water is not a waste product; it is a valuable new source of fresh water,” said HydroRevolution Chairman Aaron Mandel.

The new plant will be built on 14 ha of land currently farmed with salt-tolerant crops, with the potential of growing to a 28 ha site. This land is just a small fraction of the total 2400 ha currently used to manage and re-use irrigation drainage water for the Panoche Water District and other water districts. By treating this unusable irrigation water, HydroRevolution will be providing a new, local source of fresh water to offset the loss of imported water in to the region.

“Given the trend of highly uncertain inputs from the Delta, we need to develop a reliable supply of water in the Central Valley,” said Panoche Water and Drainage District Manager Dennis Falaschi. “This is a sustainable solution that can provide a substantial amount of additional water.”

HydroRevolution will ultimately be able to generate enough water for 10,000 homes or over 800 ha of cropland. All fresh water generated will be made available to Panoche and other nearby water districts.

“After seeing the results from the demonstration plant by WaterFX, we’re eager to get the HydroRevolution plant online quickly and optimistic about seeing others replicate what we’re doing here,” Falaschi continued. “There is an enormous resource of subsurface water that can be utilised.”

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