The UN estimates that by 2025, two-thirds of the world will live in water-stressed conditions, with 14% of the global population struggling with absolute water scarcity. Seawater desalination may be the answer to this problem. BERMAD Europe worked together with Acuamed at the Campo de Dalías seawater reverse osmosis desalination plant in Almeria, Spain, on a project that involved using desalinated water for irrigation.
<< 
>>
The Challenge
Greenhouses in the region produce high quantities of fruits and vegetables and cover over 16,500 hectares of the landscape. The land and water are highly productive, yielding an average return of approximately 62,000 € per hectare annually. However, this region also suffers from a scarcity of groundwater.
At the same time, seawater desalination is an expensive, energy-consuming process, which hinders profitability. For desalination to be feasible, the process has to both produce a large quantity of useable water and be cost-effective. To achieve this goal, Acuamed together with BERMAD Europe, looked for a viable solution that would allow them to mix desalinated water with saline water to achieve a permissible level of saline for the purpose of irrigation.
The Solution
It is very important for the saline level to be carefully measured and controlled to avoid causing catastrophic damage to crops due to an overly saline mixture. The team at BERMAD Europe, which has an ongoing relationship with Acuamed and therefore understands the company’s specific needs, designed an easy-to-install and maintain special control valves to deal with water sources containing different concentrations of salt.
In addition, in order to make the piping more efficient, four main subsystems were implemented to manage the flow control. The BERMAD Europe team also installed Pressure Relief Valves to relieve exessive line pressure when it exceeds the maximum pre-set, to protect the system from water hammer or abrupt pressure rise.
Read more about how the BERMAD Europe team supported Acuamed throughout all stages of the project, from solution design, through to implementation and after-sale support.
