Las Palmas III — the success story of brine staging

The desalination experience in Spain has been primarily initiated in the Canary Islands. A combination of scarce water sources and high water requirements to fulfill the two major industries, tourism and agricultural, has forced these islands to develop and experience with the major desalting technologies available. At the Jinamar plant, in the desalting pedigree was initiated in 1969 with the installation of 4×5,000m3/d low temperature MSF Wespoor plants (Las Palmas I), followed in 1981 by the 2×10,000 high temperature Babcock Wilcox MSF plants (Las Palmas II) and finally the installation in 1989 of 4×6,000m3/d RO plants (Las Palmas III), followed by an additional 2×6,000m3/d commissioned in 1992. In 1995 Emalsa took over the operation of Las Palmas III. A new 8,000-m3/d train has been recently installed. This paper will present the performance of the latter plant after the major overhauls carried out to improving water quality and production performance and reducing energy costing, The Las Palmas III water intake has, because of its surface nature, substantial amounts of organic matter and consequently fouling is a major problem in the operation of the plant. A brief summary of steps taken to control/reduce this fouling will also be presented.