Containerized SWRO unit retrofitted to save energy and maintenance

SUEZ operates a BOO desalination plant at WEB-Aruba that comprises a number of containerized SeaTech84 units to deliver drinking water to the island. When the aging centrifugal pump in one of these units required more and more maintenance just to keep running, it was time to think about retrofitting.

“The centrifugal pump looked like something out of a Mad Max movie,” recalls Bryan de Souza, senior process engineer at SUEZ Water Technologies & Solutions. “It was big, noisy, belt-driven, and required an increasing amount of maintenance. Its time had come.”

SUEZ engineers decided it was time to take a look at energy costs, too. “A lot has happened within energy-efficient technology during the last 20 years,” says de Souza, “including high-pressure pumps for SWRO.”

“SUEZ has partnered with Danfoss for a number of years, also in Aruba, so we were quite familiar with the APP range,” says de Souza.

“For a BOO installation like this one, the APP 65 was the logical upgrade. We calculated that we could save 15-20% in energy costs from day one, and because it has much simpler maintenance requirements than a centrifugal pump, we would also save a lot of hours and headaches throughout the life of the plant.”

According to de Souza, installation of the APP 65 pump within the existing container was straightforward. “APP pumps are considerably more compact than centrifugal pumps with similar output, so space is not an issue. And with few moving parts, no belts, and simple connections, retrofitting the pump into our container resulted in little downtime and a cleaner, neater plant.”

After 20,000 hours with no maintenance and energy savings of 20% compared to the previous pump, de Souza is satisfied with the upgrade. “The APP 65 is just a workhorse,” he concludes, “and we plan to use it to retrofit more of our SeaTech84 containerized plants in Aruba to get the same OPEX advantages.”