Reverse Osmosis and Other Treatment Technologies - Global Drinking Water Management and Conservation - page 65

Table 4.4 (continued)
# Plant name, location, and source Plant size

(MGD)

Average total
cost ($US per
1,000 gallons)

Total cost per
year (in mil-
lions of $US)

25 Aqua design ltd. (Brackish water,

British Virgin Islands — Tartola) f

1 9.10 3.32

26 Aqua design ltd. (seawater, British

Virgin Islands

0.02 13.10 0.10

Virgin Gorda)f f —

27 Tampa Bay Florida (seawater,

USA) g

25
(94,625 m 3 /
d)

2.45 22.36

Eilat (seawater, Israel) h

28 2.6 2.72 2.58

29 Eilat, second plant (seawater,

Israel) h

2.6 3.06 2.90

Larnaca (seawater, Cyprus) h

30 10.6 3.14 12.15

31 Pasadena California desalination

plant (Seawater, USA)i i

— 70 4 (1,000/AF) 102.20

32 The Aqaba hybrid scheme (sea-

water, Jordan) j

64.5 3.45 81.22

Sources
a US Congress, Of ce of Technology Assessment ( 1988 )
b California Coastal Commission ( 1993 )
c Parsons Engineering Science and American Water Works Service Company ( 1997 )
d Grethe and Beltle ( 1993 )
e Andrews et al. ( 1998 )
f

Government of the British Virgin Islands ( 1995 )

g

Leitner ( 1999 )

h

Wilf and Klinko ( 1995 )

i

Parsons Engineering Science ( 1996 )

j

Glueckstern ( 1982 )

the economies of scale can reduce unit costs by as much as 55 percent when using
RO to treat seawater, according to US Congress, Of

ce of Technology Assessment
that conducted a thorough investigation of desalination technologies in 1988 .
In order to determine if economies of scale are present, we used the information
on costs from 36 plants that use RO for their desalination operations. Table 4.4
presents the dataset obtained. For each plant, the table shows the plant number or
name, its location, and whether it desalinates brackish or seawater; plant size in
millions of gallons per day (MGD) of freshwater output; average total costs in $US
per 1,000 gallons; and the total cost per year (in millions of $US).
Finally, to determine whether economies of scale exist for RO desalination, the
average total cost (ATC) can be plotted with respect to plant size. Dore ( 2005 ) uses
12 data points when verifying the presence of economies of scale in RO. Fig-
ure 4.12 , on the other hand, makes use of an expanded data sample, composed of
the 36 observations presented in Table 4.3 . Figure 4.12 also distinguishes between
brackish water and seawater RO desalination.