Small scale groundwater desalination plants officially opened in Namibia

On October 15th and 16th 2010, the first small scale groundwater desalination plants in Namibia were officially inaugurated by the Deputy Minister of the Namibian Ministry for Agriculture, Water and Forestry Honorable Petrus Ilonga in the villages Amarika and Akutsima (Omusati Region).

Subsequent to the planning, the works in Namibia started in February 2010. At the same time, the desalination plants were manufactured in Germany and were transported to Namibia by ship. In June, the assembling of the plants started at their place of destination.

In a joint Namibian German effort six Namibian companies, the people from Amarika and Akutsima, the German manufacturers of the plants and the Technical University of Darmstadt, installed solar collectors and the plants. The start of operation took place on July 17th 2010. Since then, the plants are operated by local caretakers from the villages that were trained during the time of construction. They are supported by the Namibian Service provider Aqua Services & Engineering (ASE) and the German manufacturers of the plants.

In the village Amarika, a membrane distillation plant of the Fraunhofer institute for solar energy sys-tems (ISE) and a reverse osmosis plant of the company proaqua were built. Each plant produces around three and a half cubic meters of drinking water per day at the moment. The maximum capacity of the plants is five cubic metres per. In the village Akutsima, a distillation plant was built according to the principle of the Multi-Effect-Humidification (MEH) of the Terrawater Company with three and a half cubic meters daily capacity. Furthermore, there is a plant of the Solar institute Jülich (SIJ), which was developed together with the engineering company IBEU and which works with the Multi-Stage-Flash-method. It produces six hundred liters distillate per day. All plants are driven by solar energy.

The technology line decentralized groundwater desalination is one of four technology lines of the CuveWaters project. Furthermore, rainwater harvesting, sub terrestrial water storage and sanitation with water re-use are realized.

Marian Brenda, 02.12.2010

More information: http://www.cuvewaters.net/

Contact

  • Institute for Social-Ecological Research (ISOE)

    • PD Dr. Thomas Kluge (Project Management) Alexia Krug v. Nidda (Project Coordination)
    • Hamburger Allee 45
    • 60486 Frankfurt
    • Telephone: +49 69 707 69 19-0
    • Email Address: cuvewaters@isoe.de