Protec Arisawa , has announced the award by IDE of the contract to supply its sea water PROTEC pressure vessels for the large Sorek 2 project with a capacity of 200 million cubic meters of fresh water. The plant will become one of the largest in the world.

Protec Arisawa has been present at Aquatech Amsterdam 2019, the world’s leading water trade show for process, drinking and waste water.

The event is specialized in technology, equipment and services for water treatment and it gets structured into four main segments: drinking and waste water treatment; transport and storage; process control and automation technology; and point-of-use technology.

This biennial fair, has been held from 5 to 8 November, with more than 25,000 attending water experts and more than 1,000 exhibiting companies from 140 countries showcasing their products and services at the showroom and AquaStages.

During these 4 days, an extensive programme of educational and inspiring seminars and presentations on the latest trends and developments in the industry has been carried out. As Aquatech Amsterdam is all about innovation, it also offers a platform to explore the latest trends, products and services in one place with information on best practices and progressive solutions for the industry.

Protec Arisawa would like to thank all the attendees and visitors to our booth for their interest in our company and solutions.

2018: Another year of great achievements, striving and innovation at Protec Arisawa

Italy, Saudi Arabia, Oman, the IFAT, new business partnerships… 2018 has been a year of hard work, commitment and innovation at Protec Arisawa. Over 40 years of experience confirm our global leadership in the development and production of FRP Pressure Vessels for water purification treatments and desalination processes, and this privileged position has enabled us to take part in the most ambitious projects, both from an industrial and technological viewpoint. A great year full of challenges and promising deals!

Let’s begin with our star project of the year and major hit in the Middle East! We are speaking of course of Saudi Arabia, where Abengoa and Fisia Italimpianti have relied on Protec Arisawa for their most important venture: the Shuaiba III power and desalination complex, where Protec has been chosen for the manufacture and installation of 3,960 high-tech pressure vessels in the largest reverse osmosis desalination plant in the world, located 90 km south of the Saudi city of Jeddah.

Thanks to this main order, split into 2,800 high-pressure vessels (1,200 psi) and 1,160 low-pressure vessels (450 psi), Protec Arisawa has further reinforced its leadership position as top quality supplier for the desalination industry in this country, contributing to meeting the region’s increasing demand for water.

Barka IWP plant: Yet another important project in Oman

The opening of the Barka Independent Water Project (IWP) plant in July 2018 was the last step in a project that brought together the efforts of all our teams throughout the last few years. One more time, global leaders in desalination processes relied on Protec Arisawa to manufacture the pressure vessels for their main project in Oman: the Barka Independent Water Project (IWP) plant. With a daily capacity of 281,000 cubic meters, this seawater Reverse Osmosis facility is the largest desalination plant in the country: an essential infrastructure for the development of energy and water production for the main water network.

Another major hit was the production and installation of 216 high-tech pressure vessels in the  new Sarlux desalination plant located in Sardinia (Italy), designed to supply demineralised water for industrial processes. In this scenario, Protec Arisawa was invited for its quality and efficiency to join Acciona Agua in the conquest of the Mediterranean basin. This brand new desalination plant will provide 12,000 daily cubic meters of high-quality demineralised water to one of the most important refineries in Europe, which accounts for approximately 15% of Italy’s total refining capacity.

International meetings and new deals

After attending last year’s edition of the IDA World Congress and Aquatech Amsterdam with great results and a premium quality high-tech offer in pressure vessels for water purification, Protec Arisawa also attended the IFAT 2018: The World’s Leading Trade Fair for Water, Sewage, Waste and Raw Materials Management. Our team visited this global event in Munich and met the perfect scenario to expand knowledge in the newest emerging desalination and water reuse technologies: an all-round success in every way. Protec had the opportunity to meet the most important players in the sector and explore new technologies.

This year, water treatment has confirmed to be one of the main growing markets for both governments and the private sector. In this sense, last October Protec met important Middle East companies to ascertain cooperation and investment prospects in the United Arab Emirates. For example, top executives from Saudi Aramco, the largest oil company in the world, visited the Basque Country and started conversations with the most relevant local firms in the sector, in order to explore business possibilities ant to enhance high-level relations between both regions in order to support Basque companies established abroad.

The aim of this commercial inverse meeting between companies, where Protec stands first in line, was to deploy a new portfolio of value added services, segmented for different company profiles in an integral model combining own and partner capacities.

Once again, 2018 has confirmed Protec Arisawa’s global leadership in creating and manufacturing Fiber-Reinforced Plastic Pressure Vessels for membrane filtration systems, exceeding all known limits in terms of quality, reliability and effectiveness. When opting for Protec, customers are choosing the best Reverse Osmosis equipment in the market.

Energy efficiency: Yet another major challenge for Industry 4.0

At this stage, as global leaders in FRP Pressure Vessels for water purification and Reverse Osmosis desalination processes, at Protec Arisawa we are well aware that Industry 4.0 is called to swivel the development of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which includes new methods for optimizing global energy efficiency.

Energy transition, process monitoring and new technologies are some of the key elements for the reconversion of any industrial activity into a 4.0-industry: An immediate necessity and a challenge to ensure that our global productive system can follow the path marked by the progression of technology and innovation, regardless of sector and activity.

The importance of Industry 4.0 lies in the model towards which companies are evolving: More sustainable and increasingly respectful with the environment. This is why priority is given to aspects such as energy saving and the use of renewable energy sources.

At the outset, the factors that make up an industry 4.0 are numerous and cannot be named one by one but, in an increasing number of industrial and commercial sectors, there is one word that prevails: Connectivity.

Energy efficiency is an inherent component of Industry 4.0

Among the huge variety of tools and innovations to which we have access, the extensive connectivity between humans and systems, the generation of huge databases (Big Data), cloud computing or process simulation stand out for their importance in new industrial processes. In this sense, the evolution that connected industries will enable has a very solid foundation in process optimization. However, this cannot occur without considering the monitoring of energy consumption and the implementation of sustainable systems and processes.

Where to start? Let’s take air conditioning as an example, and observe the case of any industry that requires a type of refrigeration system at some point in its production or commercial process. The global demand for electric energy grows every year. The demand for industrial and commercial refrigeration makes an important contribution to this increase, since large-scale air-conditioning systems are some of the main culprits for this rising consumption.

It is all about data

How computing technology and large-scale data processing can help to reduce productive and energetic costs? In all industrial activities requiring any kind of cooling treatment, once the refrigeration plants have been digitalised, their main utility stems from the real-time control of the installations, which facilitates better maintenance and allows achieving optimum levels of energy efficiency.

Cooling processes are essential in many industrial sectors, and at all levels: From the extraction of certain materials, to the manufacture of products, the distribution of food or the preservation of living beings. However, such cooling processes require electrical energy. In this sense, maintaining the correct temperature of fluids, materials or rooms within industrial plants –where the processes of handling and manufacturing of finished products are long and complex– is an operation that requires complicated systems and strict cooling and/or heating protocols.

Advanced FRP Pressure Vessel manufacturing: minimal resources and maximum value

In other words, at Protec we understand this efficiency transition as a way to offer intelligent solutions that can reduce the demand for energy and resources in our field, not only with the aim of reducing costs, but also by contributing to more sustainable ways of developing industry.

The energy transition is one of the strategic dimensions of any industry, and it must be tackled in an integral way: for this reason, at Protec we consider that the achievement of maximum energetic efficiency can only be reached through innovation, changing the way we understand all phases in the energy cycle, using new technologies and involving all the players in it. Industry 4.0 is already a milestone to energy efficiency that represents a qualitative leap in the industrial field, not forgetting its environmental and therefore social benefits.

Today, only one in three Latin Americans has regular access to quality water and sanitation services. This is happening in a huge area that accounts for nearly 30% of the world’s drinking water sources, where the combination between inefficient management of water supply networks and the lack of funding severely slows down both human and economic development. Are we ready to develop effective solutions to water scarcity?

The impact and great potential of new technologies in the water sector will be fundamental in the development of new large-scale solutions aimed at ensuring a stable and secure supply of drinking water for the ever-growing world population, which depends on increasingly scarce water reserves. This is why at Protec we believe that innovation is an essential tool for long-term growth and sustainability in our sector.

Under these circumstances, the model for dealing effectively with drought must be proactive and propose structural solutions that can contribute to reduce the vulnerability of our current global water management systems, as well as mechanisms to reduce future impacts. Planning is the best tool to prevent future water shortages, and this means improving our pressure vessels, processes and technologies every day to respond effectively to the specific needs of each client and region.

In the case of Latin America, the main issue of concern to experts in this field is even though the region has sufficient water resources, the geographical and socio-economic differences between countries prevent from building up an effective hydrological infrastructure, and the institutional capacity to guarantee water security (understood as the efficient use of water for human consumption, agricultural use industrial activities) is unevenly developed.

Desalination has proved to be a reliable guarantee to produce water of the quality needed for each application. Nevertheless, extracting seawater from the ocean and turning it drinkable is a highly energy-consuming process. Therefore, operating costs related to power are crucial and directly affect the sustainability and profitability of a desalination plant.

However, technological evolution makes it possible to change the rules of the game. At Protec, we develop the technology and products to make possible a fair exchange of water resources in the future, as we are well aware that desalted water is expected to fulfil new and innovative functions, especially as the support of a wide range of economic and human activities.

Innovation related to the water sector, be it of the engineering or digital type, has become an unavoidable requirement for safeguarding water security in a growing number of countries. Now, the energy required to obtain fresh water from the oceans is more affordable and sustainable.

We can take the example of Israel, which not long ago suffered the worst drought in centuries, and now has a surplus of desalted water from the Mediterranean Sea. This remarkable progress was made possible through national programs implemented to conserve and reuse the country’s scarce water resources, but the biggest impact came from the new wave of desalination plants in the 21st century, more efficient and more economic.

As global leaders in FRP pressure vessel and rack manufacturing for reverse osmosis processes, our goal is to participate in major desalination projects that can generate employment opportunities in regions with water deficiencies, in order to provide efficient engineering solutions for a better and more sustainable seawater treatment.

Protec Arisawa is a forward-looking company always searching for new solutions in our field, and we are committed to improving processes and products day by day, so as to reach the highest quality and efficiency levels. This allows us to be major players in new markets, in a permanent search for competitive excellence and new challenges, in a sector that will increasingly require a more effective and sustainable desalination in every way.