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Saudi Arabia has signed an agreement to reconfigure its existing Shuaibah 3 Independent Water and Power Project (IWPP), located near Jeddah, to an energy-efficient and sustainable greenfield sea water reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination plant.
The agreement was signed by ACWA Power, Shuaibah Water Electricity Company (SWEC), the IWPP’s project company and Saudi Water Partnership Company (SWPC), the offtaker, according to an ACWA Power press statement on Monday.
The statement said the agreement entails the conversion and replacement of the IWPP from an energy-intensive power generation and [Multi-Stage Flash-based] thermal desalination facility to a greenfield SWRO desalination plant under the name ‘Shuaibah 3 Independent Water Project (IWP).’
The existing oil-fired Shuaibah IWPP has a power generation capacity of 900 megawatts (MW), and a desalination capacity of 880,000 cubic metres per day (m3/day), according to ACWA Power's website.
The press statement said the new Shuaibah 3 IWP will have a capacity of 600,000 m3/day, and continue to serve the Jeddah and Makkah Al-Mukarramah region.
It said the switch from thermal to RO will reduce the power needed to desalinate seawater by 70 percent. Additionally, the project will be partially energised by photovoltaic (PV) solar, which will reduce electricity consumption from the grid by 45 percent.
A new 25-year Water Purchase Agreement (WPA) valued at nearly 3 billion Saudi riyals ($800 million) was signed by Abdulrahman bin Abdulmohsen Al-Fadli, Minister of Environment, Water and Agriculture in Saudi Arabia and Chairman of the Board of Directors of SWPC with the consortium of consortium of ACWA Power and Public Investment Fund (PIF)-owned Badeel, which will implement the MSF to RO conversion project.
Shuaibah 3 IWP is expected to be commercially operational by the second quarter of 2025.
Shuaibah IWPP is slated to cease operations in 2025, saving 22 million barrels of light crude oil and curbing nearly 45 million tonnes of CO2 emissions annually, according to the press statement.
(Reporting by Senthil Palanisamy; Editing by Anoop Menon)
