Location: Nassau, New Providence, The Commonwealth of the Bahamas
Capacity: 12 million US gallons per day (45,425m3 per day)
Contract type: Design, Build, Own, Operate,
Customer: Municipal/Government
Commissioning date: July 2006
This facility is currently the largest seawater reverse osmosis plant designed, built and operating in the Bahamas. Completed in 2006 on a fast tracked building schedule, one half of the plant’s production capacity of 7.2 million US gallons of drinking water per day was online a short 53 weeks after contract award, and full production capacity was online a mere 65 weeks after. Water produced by the facility is sold to the Water and Sewerage Corporation of the Bahamas for the public water supply under a 20-year Design-Build-Own-Operate agreement. In addition to installing new water production capacity, Consolidated Water provided world-class technical expertise and equipment to reduce the customer’s distribution losses by 1.2 million US gallons per day. In January 2012, a 4.8 million US gallon per day expansion was completed, bringing the total potable water produced onsite to 12 million US gallons per day. This facility is the largest diesel-operated sea water reverse osmosis desalination plant in the world.
Prior to the construction of this facility and the Windsor facility, all the water used in the public drinking water system came either from groundwater wells located on New Providence or groundwater barged to the island from Andros Island. As water demand in New Providence grew, these groundwater sources were over-taxed, degrading the overall quality of the water entering the public system. The commissioning of this facility, and the work carried out to reduce pipeline losses, has gone a long way to relieve the pressure on the groundwater resources and improve the overall quality of the drinking water supplied to the people of New Providence.
The plant utilizes energy recovery devices to recover energy from the high pressure brine stream, and diesel engines to drive the main high pressure pumps. The total amount of energy required to operate the facility, including all ancillary equipment, is guaranteed to our customers.
The plant includes a stand-by diesel driven generator, which along with the diesel driven high pressure pumps, allows the plant to be fully functional even when the normal electrical services is down, as may occur during a hurricane. The facility also includes a fully automated post-treatment stabilization and chlorination system for the final product water, as well as a 750,000 US gallon elevated storage reservoir.