Context

Recently, the most important projects considered as the first priority for IRAN’s government is to construct some desalination plants and power plants. In fact, Iran as a developing country needs a lot of power and freshwater supplies because of its domestic and industrial consumptions. Therefore this country intend to solve this problem in order to provide electrical energy and freshwater for different applications. According to the recent studies obtained from Iranian Ministry of Energy, this country will encounter the problem of power and water shortage owing to its high demand and decreasing the annual rainfalls. On the other hand, Iran has many precious supplies such as oil and gas fields (one of the most hydrocarbon-rich areas in the world) and salt water resources (Caspian Sea, Persian Gulf). Hence, Iran’s government decides to utilize these worthwhile supplies to construct some desalination plants with capability of power generation in Mega Watt scale.

Another advantage of this project for Iran is using the waste gas in factories such as the steel industries. Also, waste gas containing calorific value can use instead of natural gas in steam power plant and cogeneration of fresh water. Therefore, in addition to the advantages above mentioned this project leads to mitigating climate change and emerged as an eco-friendly project because both of fresh water and power generating separately caused GHG emission and constructing desalination plants including power generation can be emerged as an effective tool for reducing GHG emission and climate change mitigation. To clarify this problem, according to the reports of Iran’s government (Ministry of Energy), this  country  imports  electrical  energy  (approximately  4000  million  KWh/year)  from neighboring countries such as Armenia, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan. Furthermore, despite the number of population and the demand for freshwater has increased considerably during recent years, the annual rainfalls have been decreased about 20% than long-time average and also this country will encounter water crisis in the near based on the authentic sources.

As a result, Iran’s government is concentrated to solve this problem immediately via construction of desalination plant including power generation in Mega Watt scale in the appropriate locations. In this regard, it is compulsory to cooperate with international reputation companies having a wealth of experience in this type of projects. All reputable companies are welcome to apply for this project if they are interested in constructing this kind of plants.

Assistance requested

Generally, desalination plant including power generation units in Mega Watt scale has a high efficiency approximately 90% enabling us to consume much less energy regarding the production of freshwater and power. Additionally, the environmental pollution of these plants are much less than conventional ones; thus in spite of using energy much effective, we can protect our environment by reducing pollution. By taking into account all the mentioned reasons,  Iran’s  government  is  interested  in  cooperating  with  international  reputable companies having an excellent background in engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) on these plants. The Iran’s policy is to collaborate with some companies in order to reach its significant goals mentioning as follows:

1. Primary feasibility studies to find best location for establishment of these plants.
2. Designing plants with different capacities (water and power) in Mega Watt scale.
3. Procuring all the Key equipment.
4. Constructing of the whole plant including the process units and utilities.
5. Technology transfer.

Relevant Technologies and Approaches

• Seawater desalination

Expected benefits

In one hand, lack of water resources in Iran would cause to develop industries in the Persian Gulf and Oman sea coastal area. On the other hand, source of fresh water is very limited in Iran. So, construction of plants which is produce fresh water and electricity simultaneously is a huge advantage of this suggestion because these products are definite need for developing industries in Iran. So, construction of desalination plants with capability of power generation regarding the production of power and industrial/fresh water is one of the most significant projects for Iran’s government, because these productions are necessary for this developing country to reach its long-term goals such as population growth, industrial and agricultural development.  Furthermore,  this  country  possesses  abundantly  two  main  and  primary resources including fuel (gas & oil) and water supplies (sea water); Hence this is conspicuous that Iran has excellent potential to build this type of plants. To elucidate the importance of this plant, some benefits are briefly mentioned as follows:

1. Solving the problem of water and power shortage for industrial applications. 
2. Saving energy consumption efficiently to desalinate and generate power simultaneously. 
3. Producing less pollution than the conventional plants. 
4. Balancing the electric distribution network.  
5. Developing agriculture and industry all over the country. 
6. Reducing the transmission losses for electrical energy. 
7. Reducing GHG emission and mitigating climate change. 
8. Profiting by selling its precious products (water/power) in the global marketing.