12 Apr MEDRC Hosts International Desalination Costing Workshop

In advance of the International Costing Conference 2018

The MEDRC Water Research workshop, held at the MEDRC Water Research facility in Muscat, Oman, discussed how costs are being calculated; how costs are being reported; what procedures might be used to directly compare desalination costs; and what is recommended. Recommendations from the workshop will be used to structure an international conference leading to a global standard for comparing the costs of desalination facilities around the world. This information is not only of value for various decision makers, governments and institutions, it will lead to better investments in research and better prioritization of investments through benchmarking.

The workshop focused on the following important points:

• R&D efforts for a lower energetic, economic, and environmental costs desalination
• Regulatory Framework and its impact on desalination costs
• Energy consumption and energy recovery systems in desalinations plants (design, performance and economics)
• Desalination CAPEX and OPEX: Costs Breakdown
• Desalination O&M Cost Evaluation
• Renewable Desalination Cost Evaluation
• Desalination projects costs: Trends, Examples and discussion
• Benchmarking of existing desalination costs approaches and proposing a new standard of costing calculation

The workshop is a first step towards developing an international standard of costing with a view to launching it at an International Conference, to be held in Cyprus in 2018.