The Tampa Bay Sea Water Desalination Plant (Florida) is the biggest installation of this type in United States of America. Designed for a maximum capacity of 108,800 m3/d, it was built to supply 10% of the drinking water demand of the region. Since the start up in March 2003, the plant has been working intermittently way and, although initially the plant could produce product water with the
... [Show full abstract] requested quality, soon the various operation problems made impossible to maintain the production with acceptable performance values. In November 2003, Tampa Bay Water decided to carry out a bidding process to select a company for the design and construction of the required modifications and improvements needed to make the plant function correctly. The technical solution proposed by ACCIONA AGUA, formerly Pridesa, and American Water was selected to carry out the improvements.
After a thorough case-specific study, ACCIONA Agua ended up proposing the most efficient and reliable solution, ranking first both in technical and economical categories. This document details the problems found in the plant, the solution proposed after pilot plant studies and the way the solution was implemented in the full scale facility.