Performance Study of the Al Hoceima Seawater Desalination Plant

Abstract

The growing demand for freshwater, amplified by climate change, can lead to variations in precipitation patterns and cause more frequent and severe droughts, reinforcing the need for seawater desalination to meet these growing needs. Seawater desalination has become a vital solution in many countries, notably Morocco, which has launched an ambitious program to install seawater desalination plants using the reverse osmosis technique in semi-arid zones. The AL HOCEIMA seawater desalination plant came on stream in June 2020. To keep the plant running smoothly and assess the efficiency of all its operational processes, operating indicators for each treatment process were monitored and compared with expected performance. The results of the evaluation showed that the plant is performing well in terms of producing dimenarilated water by reverse osmosis, and this is due to the adequate pre- treatment adopted by the plant. However, optimizing the remineralization of desalinated water still poses a problem in terms of alkalinity and hardness. Treated water always has an aggressive, corrosive character.