Clean water key to delivering reliable power to Canadian residents

EDINA, USA: High-quality water is of paramount importance to power generation. It helps facilitate efficient and reliable operations, protect c­­ritical equipment, and minimize environmental impact.

Source water for many power plants, however, is far from ideal. That is certainly the case for a power station in Alberta, where an innovative two-pass reverse osmosis (RO) design was used to optimize the plant’s existing configuration.

The design includes DOW FILMTEC ECO 440i Reverse Osmosis elements and DOW FILMTEC XFRLE-400/34i Reverse Osmosis elements. Since their installation, FILMTEC ECO elements have resulted in 30 percent more energy savings in the system’s second pass and FILMTEC XFRLE has improved overall pressure drops and fouling.

The lake source water at the power station is derived from a combination of the North Saskatchewan River, mine drainage, plant site drainage, sewage effluent and chemical neutralization ponds. Due to the highly variable nature of source water, the system requires thicker feed spacer elements to reduce fouling rates, and to lower the pressure drop in the first pass.