DESALINATION STATUS AND ITS ROLE IN TOURISM SECTOR IN THE MENA REGION

Kandi Venkat Reddy

Middle East Desalination Research Center (MEDRC) PO Box 21, Al-Khuwair, PC. 133, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman Tel. +968 24 695 351; Fax +968 24 697107; Email kreddy@medrc.org.om

Abstract
Every year more than 50 million tourists visit Middle East and North African countries and presently visitors growth is about 9% with higher growth predicted for the future. There is a high proportion of business travelers to the Arabian Gulf, particularly Dubai, whereas leisure travel predominates the North African market. Leisure travel is seasonal whereas business travel is year round; there is a tendency for occupancy to dip during the Holy Month of Ramadhan and summer months June to August. Governments in the region are spending large sums of money for the growing needs of the tourism sector. Many hotels/resorts are built in the region to cater for the needs of the tourism sector. Since desalination is mostly used in the Gulf for portable water needs, many large scale desalination plants are built to supply water to these hotels located in urban areas. Recent trend is to build desalination plants with BOO or BOOT contract. However, hotels/resorts located in remote locations where grid water connection is not available, make their own arrangements for water supply. Hotels/ resorts located next to beaches or with brackish water resources, use desalination for water supply. In this paper one hotel and one resort was surveyed in Muscat to find the source of their water supply and quantity of water used to asses the water needs of the tourism sector in the MENA region. Various desalinations process are reviewed to select an appropriate desalination technology for supplying water to the hotels/resorts that have no grid water connection.

1. Introduction
Countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region are attractive tourist destinations, particularly for Europeans where currently there is a favourable exchange rate between the euro and local currencies thereby increasing their purchasing power. In 2006, the number of visitors to the MENA region was about 55.5 million, representing about 8.4 percent of global tourism, with 40.8 million to the Middle East and 14.7 million to North Africa. The growth rate of visitors to these countries on average was about 9% in the last 5 years. The number of visitors to MENA countries is equivalent to those for South East Asia and Northern Europe. Whilst North African countries have focused on traditional/ cultural attractions, in the Gulf, which has fewer traditional attractions, oil wealth has funded the development of some of the best tourist facilities in the world.

Number of visitors and the growth rate to various countries in the MENA region are presented Table 1 [1]. Table 1: Visitors to MEMA countries Country Algeria Egypt Libya Morocco Tunisia Bahrain Jordan Kuwait Lebanon Oman Qatar Saudi Arabia Syria UAE Yemen Visitors in millions 2004/05 1.2 7.8 0.1 5.5 6.0 3.5 2.9 0.9 1.3 1.2 0.7 8.5 3.0 7.0 0.3 Visitors in millions 2005/06 1.4 8.2 na 5.8 6.4 3.9 3.0 na 1.1 na na 9.1 3.4 na 0.4 Percentage change 16.9 5.8 na 6.7 6.3 13.5 7.7 na -10.9 na na 6.1 11 na 22.7 Average annual growth 2000-05 10.8 10 Na 6.4 4.7 na 13.6 17.9 9 na na 6.7 18.9 na 35.7

2. Water situation in the MENA countries

Countries in MENA are in the arid/semiarid region and natural water resources are limited due to scanty rain fall. For example, Middle East region has 5% of the worlds population, but has only 1% of the worlds renewable water resources. But water needs in the MENA region are increasing due to fast growth of population and industrial activity. Therefore, many countries in the MENA are augmenting their water supplies with desalinated water. Nearly half of the domestic water supply in the Middle East is by desalinated water and in some countries it is 100%. The desalination capacity in the MENA region is about 25 million cubic meters per day out of the total desalination capacity of 46 million cubic meters per day worldwide, as per the IDA worldwide desalting plant inventory of 2006 [2]. The growth of desalination capacity world over and in the Middle East is shown in Figure 1 [2]. The exponential growth in Figure 1 for the desalination capacity world over and in the Middle East in the last five years is due to increase in water demand and also because of reduction in desalination cost as a result of technological advances in the desalination technologies. Highly subsidized water in Gulf countries are also contributing for high demand for water. On average, Gulf residents use about 275 liters of water per day and 6 MWh a year of electricity which are much above the levels of other developed nations. Desalination is now able to successfully compete with conventional water resources for potable water supplies in some regions. 2

Most of the desalination plants in the Gulf region are co-generation type, producing both power and water. The power to water ratio is fixed in these plants. But the demand for power varies considerably in different seasons and even during the day. To cope with such situation, these plants are over designed.
60

50 Million cubic meters per day

40

30

Global
20

Middle East
10

0 1975 1980 1985 1990 Year 1995 2000 2005

Figure 1: Growth of desalination capacity

3. Water requirements to tourism sector

In order to find the water requirements and to develop strategy to supply the needed water for the tourism sector, it is essential to know the water requirements and source of such supply in hotels and resorts. Therefore one hotel and one resort have been selected for case study. 3.1 Case One 5 Star Hotel in Muscat As a first case study, a five star hotel in Muscat is considered and water and energy consumption during 2006 in this hotel is given in Table 2. The water and power supplies to this hotel are through the municipal grid connection. Water used in this hotel includes the water for rooms, food and beverage outlets, recreational facilities, laundry and kitchen. The irrigation water used in this hotel for lawns and garden is the treated wastewater supplied by the municipality. Hotel pays for water OR 0.55 per cubic meter, for irrigation water OR 0.2 per cubic meter and for power OR 0.025 per kWh. This hotel has 258 rooms and can accommodate 530 persons. The occupancy rate is around 60% in May and June, 50% in July and Ramadan month, and 80% for the rest of the months. On average the occupancy rate is about 70%. However, the water

consumption rate given in Table 2 is not reflecting the occupancy rate. This could be perhaps due to guests taking more than one shower during very hot summer months. A similar trend is shown for power consumption as probably this greater use of air conditioners during summer. Water consumption is on average is one cubic meter per person per day in this hotel. Table 2: Water and Energy consumption in a five star hotel Month January February March April May June July August September October November December Water m3 9849 9840 10854 11206 11907 11912 11732 10641 10479 11105 11709 8320 Electrical Power kWh 668282 703557 771667 765274 908804 958311 980266 928812 871885 875368 823530 746494 Diesel liters 24099 19903 22138 23852 23321 24218 23645 22788 23110 21239 25881 27927 Kitchen gas m3 4141 4699 4699 5016 4963 4672 4224 3775 6230 6098 8659 7814 Irrigation water m3 2868 1590 2532 4565 5186 4071 4254 4449 4742 4266 3266 1715

3.2 Case Two Resort Hotel on the outskirts of Muscat A resort located on the outskirts of Muscat is selected for the second case study, which has 300 acres of grounds characterized with greenery. This resort has 109 rooms and can accommodate 250 people. The resort started up about five months back and some more construction work is still in progress. This resort has no municipal grid water supply. A number of bore wells were dug out for water supply. Bore well water is brackish with about 1000 ppm salinity. The resort has built a RO plant for potable water supply using the bore well water as feed water. This RO plant is supplied by Krisct of Switzerland, and its capacity is 1800 m3/day with two trains. As a start up resort, the occupancy is not currently high and therefore the plant is operated at a partial load. Since this RO plant has two independent trains it is operated for 16 hours a day with each train 8 hrs. In this plant recovery is more than 80%. Water consumption rates are not available in the resort since the water produced by the RO plant is supplied to rooms and also to the construction work. The sewage water produced is treated by a conventional waste water treatment plant. The processed wastewater and brine discharge from the RO plant are mixed and used for irrigation purpose along with the brackish water from the bore wells. Resort has grid electricity connection but has its own generator of 650 kWh. Since the resort has a large campus,

number of fruit trees and trees for greening are planted. Even vegetables are grown on the premises. It is clear from the above cases that one cubic meter per day per person is the normal water consumption in the hotels/resorts reviewed in the Sultanate of Oman. Further studies need to be undertaken in all the MENA areas to conclude an assessment for the complete region. Generally, water and power consumption in hotels and resorts vary seasonally because the occupancy rate changes with seasons. Unfortunately, it was not possible to observe the seasonal variation of water and power consumptions in the hotel/resort cases studied. In fact, most of the tourists to cities like Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Oman are generally business tourists and occupancy rate of most of the five star hotels are thus high. Whereas tourists to Egypt, Jordan and other North African countries are holiday tourists and visitors inflow changes with seasons and will be more during summer and winter holidays.

4. Water supply strategies to tourism sector

Water needs of the tourism sector are huge (55 million cubic meters in 2007 if a visitor just stays one day) and expected to increase rapidly in the MENA region. These needs have to be fulfilled in the Gulf countries by desalinated water. A desalination plant of 200,000 cubic meters per day capacity build by spending about $ 200 million is required to meet one days demand. Generally, water and electricity for hotels and resorts in the Gulf region located in the urban areas are supplied by municipalities at subsidized rates. Whereas the hotels and resorts located in the remote locations in the Gulf have their own desalination plants for their water needs. Large sums of money are spent by the governments in the Gulf for developing infrastructure and resources in the power and water sector. Recently, these governments started privatizing the water and power supplies through BOO or BOOT contracts. However, the water purchased from BOO projects is supplied to public at subsidized rates. In North African countries, natural water resources are available and not many desalination plants are built because of high capital and operating costs of these plants. However, these countries are also going for desalination for growing water needs recently. Many large scale desalination plants are planned or built recently in Algeria for augmenting their water needs. As in Gulf countries, generally hotels and resorts in the urban areas have municipal water grid connections. However, hotels and resorts located away from the cities without adequate natural water resources, water needs are fulfilled by own desalination plant or supplied by small private companies at higher rates. For example, in Egypt there are more than 100 small brackish and seawater desalination plants operated by private organizations to supply water to resorts in Red Sea and Aqaba coasts.

According to the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), annual capital invests in tourism for the MENA region in 2007 is estimated at $ 43,000 million with $ 31,000 million in the Middle East. Gulf project tracker MEED projects report that more than $ 300,000 million in tourism related developments are either planned or underway in the Gulf. In Oman there were only 133 hotels with 6,462 rooms in 2003. Number of hotels increased to 147 with 6,980 rooms in 2004 and 153 with 7,247 in 2005 [9]. The desalinated water contracted capacity from 2001 to 2005 is about 7 million cubic meters per day in the Middle East and Africa region and their purpose by different sectors is given in Figure 2 [7]. Tourism sector has 1%, i.e. in these 6 years about 70,000 cubic meters per day desalination capacity is contracted spending about $ 70 million.

Tourism 1% Power 1% Industrial (captive) 7% Irrigation 4%

Military 1%

Industrial (captive) Irrigation Military Municipal Power Tourism

Source: GWI DesalData/IDA

Municipal 86%

Figure 2: Desalinated water use by different sectors, 2001-2005 Municipal drainage water in Gulf countries is treated and used for greening. This water is also supplied for lawns and gardens in hotels and resorts.

5. Review of desalination processes

The most widely used commercial desalination processes can be classified as thermal and membrane processes. Thermal processes include Multi Stage Flash (MSF), Multi Effect Distillation (MED) and Vapor compression (VC). Reverse Osmosis (RO), Electro Dialysis (ED) and Nano-filtration (NF) are the membrane processes. Generally from economical point of view, thermal processes and RO are used for seawater desalination 6

and low pressure RO, ED and NF for brackish water. Basic features of different desalination processes are discussed below. 5.1Multi Stage Flash Desalination The MSF process was invented in 1950 by Silver. In this process saline water is heated to high temperature in a brine heater. This heated saline water is then passed through a series of stages where pressure is regulated so that the water boils (flash) in each stage and produce vapor. The vapor generated in each stage is condensed on tubes of heat exchanger to produce product water. The feed saline water is passed through the condenser tubes and gets pre-heated before entering into the brine heater. Mostly, MSF plants are linked to the power plants and low quality cheap steam from turbines is used in the brine heater for heating the saline water. The gain output ration in the latest MSF plants is 8 10 kg distillate/kg steam. There are two types of MSF processes, once through and recycle, but recycle process is most commonly used. The first commercial MSF unit of 0.5 MGD was built at Shuwaikh in Kuwait in 1957. Presently, a large numbers of MSF plants were installed world over, in particular in the Gulf countries, because of its reliability even though it is thermodynamically inefficient. The total contracted capacity of all MSF plants worldwide till 2005 is 17 million m3/day with about 30% of the total desalination capacity. In the last four decades, improvements took place in the MSF process and equipment design to reduce the investment and operating costs. The main factors for such reduction are the following. 1. Improvements / deviations to the technical specifications of MSF plants. 2. Increased top brine temperature from 900C to 1120C over the last 10 years helped in improving the performance of the MSF plant and also contributed to the reduction of unit water cost. 3. Increase in unit capacity of MSF plants over the years, 2 to 3 MGD in 1960-70 to 7-20 (32,000 91,000 m3/day) after 2000. 4. The use of Duplex steel instead of AISI 316, 316L and 316Ti reduced the cost. Duplex steel is cheap, has better mechanical properties and higher corrosion resistance than AISI 316, 316L and 316Ti. The use of thinnest titanium tubes in place of well-known copper nickel alloy for heat transfer tubes also contributed to the reduction in the investment cost. 5. The relaxation of stringent specifications by users with respect to fouling factors, distiller hydraulic test pressures, distillate purity, brine load, construction material specifications, heat exchange tube thickness, bypass on control valves, removable water boxes and redundancy of equipment and instrumentation helped the contractor to arrive at appropriate options which led to the reduction in the investment cost. 6. The BOOT contract specifications, which changed from technical to functional, has allowed the contractor to further optimize the plant and helped in reducing the cost.

7. Plant life extension with acceptable efficiency. The above improvements helped in reducing the unit water cost produced by MSF to less than US$ 1.0 per m3 for large scale plants. The investment cost of large MSF plants is about US $ 900 per m3/day capacity based on the average value of the contracted plant in the Middle East in the last years. Typical unit water cost breakdown for MSF with CCGT plant is given in Figure 2 [2].

Spares 9%

O&M 17% Capital recovery 45%

Steam 22% Power 7%

Figure 2: Unit water cost breakdown for MSF 5.2 Multi-Effect Distillation MED technology was adopted from chemical industry for desalination in 1900. Small capacity MED plants were built since 1900 in ships. But the first land-based MED desalination plant was built in 1930 in Saudi Arabia. In this process also like MSF, the downstream stage is maintained at lower pressure than the upstream stage. Steam generated in the upstream stage is used as heating medium for generating steam in the downstream stage and condensate produced is collected as product water. Thus only first stage requires steam from external source. Evaporation takes place outside the tubes by spraying the feed on horizontal tube bundle and condensation occurs inside the tubes in each stage. Multi effect distillation is thermodynamically a more efficient process compared to MSF. The gain output ratio is directly proportional to the number of effects unlike for the MSF and in the latest plants it is about 12. Temperature of 70 0C is used in the latest plants to

reduce the scaling problems. The total contracted capacity of MED without vapor compression by the end of 2005 was only 1.175 million m3/day, which is much less than that of MSF. MED technology with thermal vapor compression improves the performance of the plant and gain out put ratios can reach up to 15. MED with mechanical vapor compression has not much effect on the specific power consumption, only single effect is generally used, specially, for small and medium scale applications. The contracted total capacities of mechanical and thermal vapor compression plants are 504,358 and 1,455,433 m3/day respectively. Most of the MED plants built till 1970 were for brackish or river water desalination and they used submerged tubes with unit capacities of 1 MGD or less due to scaling problems with seawater desalination. Heat transfer coefficients were low in submerged tube evaporators and hence vertical and horizontal tube falling film evaporators were introduced to improve the heat transfer coefficient. Higher heat transfer coefficients in the falling film allowed in reducing the top brine temperature to less than 700C, which helped in reducing the scaling problems. In the last ten years, many developments took place in MED with respect to increase in plant capacity to 6 MGD from 1 MGD, coupling of thermal vapor compression with MED, use of improved horizontal tube falling film evaporation, stabilization of low temperature operation, use of aluminum for heat transfer tubes resulting in realization of modern MED plants and reduction of unit water costs. Largest MED plants are reliable, matured and have better performance than MSF even for the harsh Arabian Gulf water conditions. This led to the construction of MED plants in the Arabian Gulf recently. An excellent review of the performance of some of the operating MED plants in the Arabian Gulf is reported by Al-Shammiri and Safari [5]. The unit water cost of the recent large MED plants is 0.55-0.7, which is less than for MSF and very close to RO. The capital cost is about US $ 850 per m3/day capacity of large scale plants and energy consumption is less than MSF. 5.3 Reverse Osmosis Reverse osmosis is a pressure driven membrane process for separating dissolved solutes. RO process consists of semi-permeable membrane and the applied pressure will be about 70 bar for most of the commercially available SWRO membranes. In industrial scale plants, the water fluxes and salt passage through the membrane are considered economically viable if the operating pressure is 50 to 100% higher than the transmembrane osmotic pressure. Reverse Osmosis phenomenon was discovered in the 18th century but the breakthrough occurred in 1950 with the invention of cellulose acetate membranes. In 1966 a spiral wound RO process of 0.05 MGD capacity was demonstrated. The RO desalination was commercialized much later than MSF and MED. The first commercial brackish water RO plant with spiral wound membrane was contracted to build at Kashima in Japan in 1969 to cater to the water needs of a power plant. After 6 years in 1975, a seawater RO plant of 1500 m3/day capacity was contracted to build at Al-Kharj in Saudi Arabia. The total

contracted capacity of RO plants by the end of 2005 reached 23.36 million cubic meters per day, which is the highest capacity compared to any other process. But the seawater desalination share is only 9.611 million cubic meters per day. There are many developments over the last three decades that contributed to the reduction of unit water cost of RO desalination, particularly membrane module performance and reduction in energy consumption with better energy recovery systems. The performance of the membrane modules improved with respect to increased salt rejection, increased surface area per unit volume with the introduction of hollow fine fiber modules and spiral wound modules, increased flux, improved membrane life, capacity to work at high pressure and also decrease in membrane cost. The recovery ratio increased considerably over the years due to improved salt rejection. The recovery ratio for seawater desalination was about 25% in 1980s and it increased to 35% in 1990s. Currently it is about 45% and it will be more if 2nd stage is included. Improved recovery facilitated in decreasing in the investment cost and also operating costs. The capital cost reduction is due to a reduction in RO trains and intake system sizes. The operating cost reduction is due to a reduction in usage of chemicals and pumping energy. The membrane costs should increase due to inflation over a period of time. But they have fallen down by 86% between 1990 and 2005, which contributed considerably for unit water cost reduction. Recently, the specific energy consumption has been considerably decreased with the introduction of better energy recovery system from reject brine such as ERI (Energy Recovery Inc.) or DWEER (Dual Work Exchanger Energy Recovery). The developments in various parameters of RO desalination as presented by Sommariva [3] are given in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Membrane improvements over years

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Apart from improvements in RO technology, increase in plant capacity also contributed to the reduction in unit water cost. The magnitude of the respective costs due to improvements in the membranes and increase in plant capacity are difficult to measure since they have both taken place simultaneously. The plant capacity increased by a factor of 10 between 1995 to 2005. The investment cost of recent large scale seawater RO desalination plants is about US$ 800 per cubic meter per day capacity. Presently, unit water cost of large scale RO plant is about US$ 0.5. Dreizin [5] for Ashkelon seawater RO desalination plant and Borsani and Rebagliati [6] for Arabian Gulf conditions provided detailed cost figures for each cost component. Typical unit water cost breakdown for seawater RO plant is given in Figure 4 [3]. RO is also used for medium salinity brackish water. About 33% of the total RO plant capacity of 23.36 million m3/day worldwide is brackish water desalination. The pressure applied in brackish water desalination will be in the rang of 10 to 15 bar and recovery will be 75% to 85%. Feed water from wells to RO does not need much pretreatment except cartridge filter and addition of antiscalants. The cost brackish water desalination will be in the range of $ 0.2 to 0.3 per cubic meter depending on the salinity and other contaminants.

Membranes 16%

Spares 4%

Capital recovery 41%

O&M 14%

Chemicals 6% Power 19%

Figure 4: Unit water cost breakdown for seawater RO plant 5.4 Nano-Filtration Nonofiltration is a membrane filtration process and it is used to treat low salinity brackish water or surface water. Total capacity of NF plants world wide is 1.5 million m3/day till 2004. First plant was built in 1987 and 34% of the existing capacity was built 2001.

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Pore size of the NF membranes will be 0.01 to 0.001 m and separation occurs in the NF process based on its pore size. In the NF process concentration of specific components like hardness, iron, organic or color will be removed. Monovalent ions are not separated in the NF process. About 62% of total installed NF capacity world wide is used for treating river water, 19% for waste water and 14% for brackish water. Most of the water, 77%, produced by NF is used for municipal use.The pressure applied generally will be around 10 bar. Recently, researchers concentrated to use the NF process for pre-treatment of seawater for thermal and RO process. 5.5 Electro Dialysis Electro dialysis is a membrane separation process consisting of cation and anion exchange membranes. In this process cation and anion exchange membranes are arranged in alternative pattern between anode and cathode to form individual cells. The positively charged cations in the saline solution passing through the cell migrate towards the cathode and negatively charged anions towards the anode when electrical potential is established between the anode and cathode. This results in an increase in the ion concentration in alternate compartments and depleting in the others to achieve separation of salts from water. Electro dialysis is commercially used since 1955, about 10 years before RO. Construction of ED plants started in 1967 in the Middle East. Total ED plants construction capacity worldwide is about 1.8 million m3/day till 2005, which is very less compared to other desalination process capacities. This process is generally used for small and medium scale application for desalination of brackish water and for polishing the pure water for special applications. In this process power consumption and membrane area required is directly proportional to the salinity. Recently, use of this process is decreasing and RO is used in its place because of the improvements in the RO membranes. Electro dialysis is improved for reducing the fouling of membranes by the introduction of Electro dialysis reversal (EDI) by Ionics. In this process the polarity of the electric field applied to the electrodialysis stack as the driving force for the tyransportation of ions is reversed in certain time intervals. Simultaneously the flow streams are reversed, i.e. the dilute cell becomes the concentrate cell and vice versa. First small EDI plant of 255 m3/day was built in USA in 1994.

6. Selection of appropriate technology for Hotels and Resorts

The following are the general requirements for hotels/resorts. 1. Water required in a hotel depends on the number of hotel rooms available, the occupancy rate and use of the Hotels food and beverage and banqueting facilities. In the case study of a five star hotel in Muscat presented earlier, it was observed that the water consumption level is in the range of 300 m3/day and most of such hotels are expected to be in the

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same range. Largest hotel water consumption in the MENA should not exceed 1000 m3/day. In the second case study of resort, RO plant of 1,800 m3/day was build since it planned to use the desalinated water for irrigation. Thus as in the hotels, the water consumption in a resort should not exceed more than 1000 m3/day. 2. The occupancy rates in hotels/resorts change seasonally, particularly in North Africa, where tourists come for holiday. 3. Hotels/resorts located in remote location that has grid water connection, they will also not have wastewater disposal grid connection. In such cases wastewater should be treated and treated water can be utilized for greening. 4. Disposal of discharge brine from desalination plant is a problem if the hotel/resort is not on the beach. Selection of appropriate desalination process for hotels/resorts depends on various parameters. However, the basic criterion is the cost of desalination. The cost, energy and single train capacities of various desalination processes reported in the literature are given in Table 3. Cost of desalination by any of these processes is site specific and depends on clients requirements. Cost depends on the salinity and quality of water treated, plant capacity, energy cost, reliability, concentrate disposal and local regulatory issues and land cost. MSF is not suitable to consider for supplying water to a hotel/resort because of the following. 1. The single train size of MSF has tripled over the last four decades and present economical size for a large scale plants is 70,000 m3/day. Even the minimum economical size of a single train is about 5000 m3/day. However, a large hotel water requirement will be less than a single train capacity. It is possible to build small MSF plants suitable for hotel requirements, but cost of desalinated water will be much higher than $ 1 per cubic meter. 2. The cost of water produced by MSF will be $ 0.8 to 1 per cubic meter, if the thermal energy required is a low quality steam supplied from a power plant. If the high quality steam from a boiler at high temperature is directly supplied after throttling, the cost of steam will rise considerably. According to the exergy analysis study conducted by Darwish [8], supplying steam directly from steam generator (or boiler) should be avoided as it raises the cost of fuel to at least 8 times and 10 times the case of SWRO supplied with power from steam power plant and gas/steam combined cycle power plant respectively. Therefore, MSF should be coupled to a power plant for supplying low quality steam required. Thus MSF is not economical to supply water to a hotel/resort. 3. The water requirement in some of the hotels/resorts varies with seasons, which necessitates the operation the desalination plants at low loads. But

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Table 3: Energy consumption costs of large scale commercial desalination processes Process Thermal energy kWh/m3 7.5 - 12 4-7 Electrical Total energy energy kWh/m3 kWh/m3 2.5 3.5 1.5 2 36 0.5 2.5 10 15.5 5.5 9 36 0.5 2.5 Capital cost US$/m3/day Unit water cost US$/m3 1000 1500 0.8 - 1 0.60.8 0.5-0.8 0.10.3 Typical single train capacity m3/d 500070000 500 12000 1 10000 1 - 10000

MSF MED SWRO BWRO

900 1200 800 1000 < 800

MED with vapor compression desalination plants are available in various sizes suitable for small and medium scale applications. MED with mechanical vapor compression will be suitable to supply water to a hotel/resorts and such systems are available in the market. However, the efficiency of it will be low if it is operated at low loads and thus increase the cost of desalination. At the same time, low load operation can enhance the scaling due improper distribution of evaporating brine on the tubes. Few hours a day operation of MED with mechanical vapor compression will also have same problems like MSF. RO has advantages in terms of the following RO needs only electrical energy and energy consumption is less than other processes with the introduction of efficient energy recovery systems recently. RO plants are modular and current industrial scale module capacity is about 100 m3/day with large size membranes. Operation wise RO is more flexible for desired quantity of water production since it is modular. Small size RO plants can be constructed since they are modular and module capacity can be changed depending on the requirement since different sizes of membranes are available (4, 8 and 16 inches). Installation space required for RO plant is less compared to other traditional thermal processes.

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Therefore, RO is a most suitable for supplying water to hotels/resorts and presently most of the hotels/resorts are using RO for their water needs. However, like thermal processes, RO plant efficiency will be less if operated at low loads and will enhance the scaling and fouling problems. However, it is feasible to operate required number of RO trains for less water requirements. There is no need to take special care to preserve the membranes if they are not in use for less than 24 hours. For less water production in the resort in Muscat presented earlier, RO plant is operated for 16 hours a day with each train 8 hrs. However, if the RO plant is shutdown for more than 4 or 5 days and daily flushing is not possible, the membranes can be preserved to prevent the biological growth and dry out. The following preservative solutions can be used to preserve the membrane. 1% solution (food grade) sodium bisulphate 1% solution of RoCide IS2 5% solution of RoCide LC

Recently, RO is preferred over ED for brackish water desalination. ED also has another disadvantage of retaining uncharged molecules of feed in the desalinated water. Thus, ED is generally used for special applications. Since NF is used for removing specific components like hardness, iron, organic or color, it will be highly feasible if such waters have to be treated for supplying water to hotels/resorts.

7. Conclusions
Tourism is growing in the MENA region at 9% and it is expected to grow at higher rate in the future. There are considerable efforts in the region to develop infrastructure by spending huge sums to deal with with the growing needs in the tourism sector. Most of the countries are making efforts to supply the growing water needs to the tourism sector. However, in some countries and also in remote locations, hotels/resorts owners have to make their own arrangements for the needed water. Desalination is used in such hotels/resorts if they are located on the beaches or have brackish water resource. Desalination is energy intensive and an expensive process. However, latest developments in these technologies permit the use of these technologies for supplying water to the hotels/resorts. Theoretically one can use any desalination technology for supplying water to hotels/resorts. However, the use of RO is more economically beneficial, particular to hotels/resorts which have varying occupancy rate with seasons.

References
1. John Irish, Middle East Economic Digest, 4-10 May, 2007 2. Klaus Wangnick, 2004 IDA Worldwide Desalting Plants Inventory Report No. 18, International Desalination Association, 2004 3. C. Sommariva, Desalination Management and Economics, Sponsored by Mott MacDonald and published by Faversham House Group, UK 15

4. M. Al-Shammiri and M. Safari, Multiple Effect Distillation plants: state of the art, Desalination 126, 45-59, 1999 5. Yosef Dreizin, Ashkelon seawater desalination project off-takers self costs, supplied water costs, total costs and benefits, Desalination 190, 104-116, 2006 6. Roberto Borsani and Silvio Rebagliati, Fundamentals and costing of MSF desalination plants and comparison with other technologies, Desalination 182, 29-37, 2005 7. 2006 IDA Worldwide Desalting Plant Inventory Report No. 10, International Desalination Association, 2006 8. M. A. Darwish, Desalting fuel energy cost in Kuwait in view of $ 75 /barrel oil price, Desalination 2008 (2007) 306-320. 9. Tom Pepper, Middle East Economic Digest, 4-10 May, 2007

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