Water Acquisition Challenges For Industrial Plants

Water is becoming more complex for industry. Its cost as a component of production is on the rise, and greater regulatory scrutiny continues to expand post-process wastewater treatment. Against a backdrop of growing water scarcity, industrial leaders are focusing more time and energy into leveraging water acquisition and usage to their competitive advantage. The days when access to water was taken for granted are over. In fact, by 2030 global water demand is projected to exceed available water by 40 percent.

Water Scarcity

Plants in regions more susceptible to drought face some of the greatest risks to acquiring water. For example, California experienced a five-year drought from 2012 to 2016 that prompted the state to enact severe water restrictions. Those restrictions are now being reviewed as potentially permanent changes to water usage in California. Many believe that similar droughts will become more frequent with the impact of climate change over time. For industrial entities, being able to rely on a predictable water supply is imperative for forecasting operations.

Sustainability

There has been a growing movement toward sustainable water management in industry over the past decade. Initially critiqued as a public relations operation to mitigate the adverse impacts industrial operations might have on local communities, sustainable water management has taken on legitimacy as the economic incentives for controlling water supply have been established. Although plants in areas with free water sources such as lakes and rivers might have access to plentiful water now, there is no guarantee that those sources will remain available in the future. Industry has realized that changing local water demand and regulations could leave plants with a need to find new sources of water. According to the Carbon Disclosure Project, 53 percent of Global 500 companies responding to its Water Disclosure request reported that they have experienced detrimental water-related impacts in the last five years, while 68 percent identified water as a risk to their business. No business wants to be forced into reacting to unsustainable watershed conditions outside of its control.

Cost

Plants that acquire some or all of their water from local municipalities are noticing that their cost of water has begun to steadily rise. According to Circle of Blue, water rates for residential customers in 30 major U.S. cities increased by 48 percent from 2010 to 2016 as municipalities battle aging infrastructure woes. Against a backdrop of popular unrest with such rate hikes, industrial customers fear that they will or are bearing the brunt of cost increases as political pressure makes increasing rates on residential water customers untenable for city leaders.

No matter the source, without reliable access to water, plants could face everything from greatly increased costs of acquiring water on short notice to potential shutdowns in response to a lack of water.

What Can Industrial Plants Do?

Regardless of the water sources that industrial facilities currently access, it is unlikely that availability and access to water will not change in the coming years. Plants need to increase their water resiliency so that they can continue operating efficiently and avoid costly shutdowns due to water scarcity. To do so, plant managers can take several steps.

Reducing the amount of water needed to operate is one option for addressing water holistically. The less water that plants need to acquire and bring onsite, the lower the risk of water shortages, water quality variability, or increased water cost. Water reuse is a particularly attractive option for reducing the amount of water that needs to be acquired. It not only allows plants to reduce the amount of water used by the facility, but also lowers or eliminates the need to discharge wastewater.

In addition, water reuse and reduction includes those public relations soft benefits discussed earlier. Plants can be viewed as making sustainable choices that help to conserve water, improving the organization’s public image by making pro-environmental choices.

In addition to onsite water reuse, plants could also opt to use alternative sources of water. One option: accessing treated wastewater from wastewater treatment plants. Such plants generally have to discharge wastewater back into the environment, which represents an additional cost for them. However, industrial plants can treat that water to a level useful for certain applications, such as for cooling tower make-up or boiler feedwater for steam generation, while still reducing costs below other means of water acquisition. The result is a win-win situation. Wastewater treatment plants are eager to find a use for such wastewater, which they can sell to industrial plants at reduced rates compared to potable drinking water.

Regardless of how plants acquire more water, outside water and wastewater treatment experts may offer the best solution for developing and executing plans for water acquisition and reuse. These decisions are complex and require intricate cost-benefit analysis to justify which option makes sense. Vendors can eliminate the risk and capital expenditure of having to install and maintain equipment to treat water by supplying and operating the equipment directly. Choosing a vendor that guarantees water availability offers plant operators peace of mind. These vendors often have backup fleets that can be delivered onsite within hours to provide water as needed when the primary water source is unavailable.

Outside vendors also offer the advantage of assessment of all options that industrial plants should consider and how they work together. Outside experts can draw on their experience of acquiring treated wastewater or reducing water needed for plant operation. Vendors provide access to a team of process and operations experts to establish and manage the water reuse process so that plant managers do not have to hire additional personnel for the task or focus on it themselves. Solutions providers such as SUEZ have the experience and broad portfolio of technology to assess the challenges and provide various options for water recycling within facilites.

Industrial facilities might not see the immediate need to address water scarcity, especially if they currently have access to reliable sources of water. However, as global water availability shrinks and demand for water increases, industrial entities can no longer afford to ignore the threat that water insecurity poses to their operations.