The Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) has completed construction of Stage 1 of the Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) project for desalinated water and has started the operations and testing stage.
The project is expected to be finished by 2025. Once completed, the ASR project will be able to store up to 6,000 million imperial gallons of water as a strategic reserve.
This will make the it the largest ASR of its kind in the world. The project will store potable water and retrieve it in case of an emergency.
Storage of potable water for emergencies
The project aims to secure Dubai with an additional source of potable water as a strategic reserve of 50MIGD for 90 days in emergencies, while ensuring the quality of the stored water.
The managing director and CEO of DEWA, Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, said that the new project supports DEWA’s efforts to increase the storage capacity of Dubai to reach 7,212 MIG by 2025, compared to its present storage capacity of 822 MIG.
The ASR project increases the sustainable production of water in Dubai. It uses clean solar power to desalinate seawater using the latest Reverse Osmosis (RO) technologies.
Excess water is stored in aquifers and pumped back into the water network when needed.
The cost of this innovative integrated model is less than the cost of traditional reservoirs, and is a sustainable, eco-friendly, economical solution. It also emphasises Dubai’s ability to anticipate and shape the future.
Al Tayer said: “We support the vision of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, to provide a state-of-the-art, integrated, and resilient infrastructure of electricity and water in Dubai according to the highest standards of availability, reliability, efficiency and safety.
“This helps to ensure meeting the rapidly growing demand for water across different areas in Dubai for all citizens, residents and visitors. Besides the ASR project, DEWA is working on a 120 MIG reservoir in Al Nakhali and another 60 MIG reservoir in Al Lusaily.”
The production capacity of desalinated water of DEWA is currently 490 MIGD, including 63MIGD using Sea Water Reverse Osmosis (SWRO) technology.
By 2030, SWRO will help expand its production capacity to 303 MIGD, increasing it to 730 MIGD of desalinated water by 2030.
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