Aqualia (Entemanser, in Adeje) is committed to desalination, innovation and digitization to strengthen its sustainability policy as a water manager in many municipalities of the Canary Islands, taking its Adeje center as a reference, where throughout this year it will inaugurate Aqualia Wave, which will serve as a European R&D center, in a clear commitment not only to the quality of desalinated water, but also to research into all the resources that can be extracted from seawater.
With a large delegation from Aqualia, the water manager in various municipalities in Tenerife and Gran Canaria, headed by its regional delegate Francisco Blanco, it was possible yesterday to tour the modern facilities of Adeje (desalination plant and management office, remote control and laboratory) to learn about situ the integral cycle of the water, that is to say, the route that follows from its collection from the natural environment -whether from a gallery, a well or the sea-, going through the entire process of purification of the water so that it is suitable for consumption.
In a didactic visit, it was possible to learn about desalination in La Caleta as a guarantor of sustainable development in the Islands and as a solution to the constant decrease in inland water flows from wells and galleries. Right next to the desalination plant, an R+D+i center will be installed shortly, on a 3,000-square-meter plot designed to help administrations and, therefore, improve the lives of citizens, with technicians and scientists They came from all over Europe, as Juan de Arévalo, head of Aqualia Wave, pointed out.
The production of the La Caleta desalination plant is currently 12,000 m3/d of drinking water for human consumption, but it is prepared to be expanded to 10,000 m3/d shortly, said Pedro Gómez, head of Production for Tenerife West. The technology used is reverse osmosis with energy recovery by isobaric chambers, which gives it an energy efficiency of 2.6 kW/m3.
At the Aqualia offices, in the center of the Adejero municipality, it was possible to learn first-hand about digitization as the main tool for sustainability, with smart meters that control the 22,000 Aqualia customers in Adeje -the one with the highest consumption, due to its hotel weight, in the Canary Islands- and sensors installed in the hydraulic assets of the municipal services that allow any leak or breakdown to be dealt with in the shortest possible time.
Under the name of Aqualia Live, “with the help of new technologies, such as big data and artificial intelligence, we can identify any anomaly early. In this way, we managed to improve water efficiency and, in turn, energy. And it is essential to sensorize all the supply points and analyze the data that emerges to achieve that desired energy saving, since we are going to have less water and we must improve decision-making,” said Pedro Navas, head of customer management. of the Canary Islands
“Thanks to these technologies in the Canary Islands, we have achieved yields of over 90% in municipalities such as Adeje and in others such as Candelaria an improvement in yield of over 10% over what we already had,” he recalled in a room where each of the the 22,000 meters of Adeje.
control rooms
The laboratory that controls all the water managed by Aqualia in Adeje and throughout the Canary Islands is located at the same client management and teleworking headquarters, where physical-chemical and microbiological water analyzes are carried out: in the drinking water matrices, In accordance with current regulations, tank and network controls, tap controls and complete analyzes are carried out, in addition to the necessary analyzes for raw water studies.
Determinations are also made for treated inland water matrices (swimming pools) and in other matrices (seawater, brines, permeates…) for the control of water produced in desalination plants, as well as any other type of special analysis that is required both by the health authorities, town halls or for the control of the service itself, recalled Atasara Hernández.
