eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality engages NEDO for seawater desalination demo

Japan’s largest public management organisation promoting research and development, New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organisation (NEDO) and Hitachi Ltd, have started a demonstration project for a seawater desalination and water reuse integrated system in the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality in Durban, South Africa.

Under the initiative, the two companies recently started demonstration operation of the system at the demonstration site of a waste water treatment plant in the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality.

This demonstration project uses a system developed during a demonstration project by NEDO in Japan, and construct demonstration facilities aiming for desalinating 6,250 tonsof drinking water from seawater and treated and discharged waste water every day, while saving 30% more energycompared to conventional seawater desalination systems and reducing the impact on the marine environment.

“In the future, we plan to introduce this technology in South Africa and to other regions with serious water shortages, thus contributing to the development of water infrastructure and industry,” NEDO said in a statement.”South Africa not only suffers from a serious water shortage due to large-scale droughts and other factors, but also has a power shortage that forces them to frequently conduct load shedding.”
NEDO said it is against this background that it engaged in a seawater desalination and water reuse integrated system demonstration project to solve the South Africa’s water shortage issues and to promote the introduction of energy-saving water production technology.