Taking The Guesswork Out Of RO System Design

By Steve Alt, Jim Lozier, and Tyler Nading, CH2M HILL

Engineers at CH2M HILL have developed a tool to evaluate energy-recovery devices (ERDs), enabling wise decision-making and lower-cost reverse osmosis (RO) desalination.

Did you know energy consumption accounts for the largest part of a desalination plant’s total operating costs? As a result, desalination plants look to energy-recovery devices (ERDs) to cut back on operating costs by reusing energy from the reverse osmosis (RO) process. 

However, with numerous ERDs available on the commercial market, such as energy- recovering turbines or pressure exchanging technologies, it can be a time-consuming and tedious process to determine which, if any, ERD is best suited to meet the needs of an existing or new plant.