Economic Feasibility Study of Community Scale Reverse Osmosis Plants in Jaipur, Rajasthan

Abstract

This study presents a performance analysis in terms of energy and other costs related to the unit cost of water produced in 16 identical community scale reverse osmosis units installed at Jaipur. The energy consumptions indicated that these plants suffer from accelerated fouling of membranes due to scaling by hardness causing substances, which results in a significant loss of useful life of the membranes. The study shows that the overall cost of water production has four major components. Energy cost varies between Rs. 0.025 and 0.079 per litre. Salary cost varies between Rs. 0.04 to 0.20 per litre. Spares and chemical cost varies between Rs. 0.01 to 0.04 per litre. In addition, repayment of capital invested has also been considered with and without solar integration to arrive at realistic cost estimates over a perceived life cycle of the system. The breakeven achieved by selling 4600–5200 litre water @ Rs. 0.2 per litre per day if repayment of capital investment is not considered, as these units were installed under CSR, while it varies between 8800 and 9600 litre if repayment of capital investment is also considered as an independent business venture. This analysis substantiates that potential exists for the long-term sustainability of these systems.