WDRC visits Al-Shuaiba Water Desalination plant - Shuaibah 3-

22 February, 2017

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On February 22 Professor Noreddine Ghaffour hosted a trip organized by Ph.D. student Khaled Bin Bandar to Al-Shuaiba Water Desalination plant, Shuaibah 3, to visit their two large scale Red Sea water desalination plants located in the same site and using different technologies, namely the Multi-Stage Flash (MSF) and Reverse Osmosis Seawater (SWRO), under Shuaibah Water & Electricity Company (SWEC) and Shuaiba Expansion Project Company (SEPCO). Shuaiba 3 has a total production capacity of 900 MW of power and 1,030,000 m3/day of desalinated water from both MSF and SWRO processes to serve the Holy City of Makkah, Jeddah, Taif and Al-Baha.

The visit included informative presentations and a tour of the different sections of both plants where a number of students and researchers from the WDRC had the opportunity to observe and explore the difference between thermal-based and membrane-based full-scale seawater desalination plants co-located in the same site.
The WDRC visitors also had the chance to link with industry and examine research possibilities and future collaborations.
WDRC would like to thank SWEC and SEPCO’s administration, staff, engineers and technicians for their warm welcome, hospitality and for offering a very detailed discussion on their plants.