15 - 21 February 2001

US energy company to team up with WSC

by Franco Aloisio

Malta’s Water Services Corporation is planning to team up with an American energy company, Ocean Power Corporation, to start manufacturing, installing and maintaining high-efficiency seawater reverse osmosis plants, industry sources have told The Malta Business Weekly.
This new business relationship is being developed with WSC, and is intended to lead to a new subsidiary – Ocean Power Malta.
The Malta Desalination Services Ltd, owned by WSC, will start manufacturing Seawater Reverse Osmosis (SWRO) technology which will be used by Ocean Power for the energy-saving H20kW projects.
The H20kW system integrates the production of water and power, while using a variety of fuel sources. The system, used last year at Ghar Lapsi as a new innovative means of desalinating water, caters for a limited production of water and hence can be used in remote areas in the world where drinking water is unavailable or scarce.
Last year the Maltese Desalination System at Lapsi was used by Ocean Power as a testing ground for the worldwide launch of H20kW. Ocean Power Corporation used the Seawater Desalination System at Ghar Lapsi to prove the capabilities of the new desalination system devised by the same company. The system was tested successfully in Malta.
Announcing the results of the tests carried out in Malta on the H20kW, Ocean Power said the product water quality, resulting from this new system, was well below 50 parts per million of total dissolved solids. Moreover the only major residual contaminant found was that of Chlorides, which result from the Chlorine used to treat the water. However the Chloride levels were at levels far below the international guidelines for drinking water quality.
The vice-president of Ocean Power Corporation, Bob Campbell, said the product water quality from the certification tests carried out in Malta was excellent.
In fact, all necessary requirements of the World Health Organisation, US Environmental Protection agency and EU water quality standards were met or even exceeded.
The results were those required by Ocean Power to complete its phase of testing.
The certification tests on the H20kW were conducted by the laboratory division of the Water Technology of Malta, together with the analysis and assessment made by the Scottish firm Richard Morris and Associates.