GE pumps funds into wastewater research

General Electric (GE) is boosting research into recycled water, banking on the US$5 billion global market growing even bigger.

As rapidly increasing demand for water strains supplies across the Middle East, GE has announced that it will increase research spending on waste water filtration systems by 50 per cent, including at new research centres in Saudi Arabia and Singapore.

The US technology conglomerate has long been a major supplier of power generation equipment in the region, but now sees wastewater and water re-use systems as two of the “biggest opportunities” for growth, Steve Bolze, the head of the firm’s water and power equipment units, told Bloomberg.

GE, which has a number of business links to Mubadala Development, the strategic investment arm of the Abu Dhabi Government, will also conduct research on water technologies at an energy technology centre planned for Masdar City, the carbon-neutral development at the edge of the capital.

“We think it’s going to be a great business, not only in the US but in China,” said Jeffery Immelt, the chief executive of GE. “The entire Middle East is constrained so this is a problem that’s shared broadly.”

Experts say filtration and re-use of waste water for industry, irrigation and even household applications will receive more attention as rising consumption stretches the region’s water desalination capacity.

The International Energy Agency (IEA), a group of energy consuming nations that is based in Paris, predicts energy use will soar across the Middle East as demand for desalination doubles in the next 20 years. Of that new capacity, 70 per cent will be located in the Gulf states, Algeria and Libya, the IEA said.

The increasing amounts of energy used for desalination served as an incentive for greater use of recycled water, said Dieter Ernst, the chief executive of Berlinwasser, a German water company that operates a joint-venture firm in the UAE. “There’s a very strong link between energy consumption and water use,” Mr Ernst said. “The main question is what to do with it in the re-use cycle.”

Residents, he said, “are not so aware that water is a resource”.

Demand for water in Abu Dhabi is expected to double by 2030, according to a forecast presented last week by the Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Company.

Faced with rising demand, the Government has moved to de-regulate the wastewater sector to encourage foreign investment and increase capacity for treatment and re-use of wastewater.

The emirate recycles 60 per cent of its water and has plans to increase the figure to 100 per cent, said Alan Thomson, the managing director of the Abu Dhabi Sewerage Services Company.

* with Bloomberg

cstanton@thenational.ae

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GE to build Kuwait's Subbiya power plant

Kuwait's central tenders committee has chosen General Electric to build a 2,000 megawatt power plant, a newspaper said on Wednesday.

General Electric is the preferred choice of Kuwait's Ministry of Electricity and Water to build the Subbiya plant, daily al-Watan said in an unsourced report.

General Electric has already been chosen, but it needs the final approval of the Audit Bureau,” Meshan al-Otaibi,a spokesman for the emirate’s Ministry of Electricity and Water told Bloomberg.

GE was selected “because it had the lowest bid” of KWD760 million (US$2.65 billion), beating Siemens AG for the proposed plant in Subbiya, he said.

In April, Kuwait issued a new tender to build turbines for the plant in the north of the country, which is due to come on stream in 2011, saying it expected

the cost to be far less than earlier estimates in excess of KWD700 million.

Apart from General Electric, Kuwait had pre-qualified Germany's Siemens, Japan's Mitsui & Co and Marubeni Corporation, Spain's Iberdrola Ingenieria Y Construccion, and Canada's SNC-Lavalin Limited,

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Iraq signs deal with General Electric

Iraq has signed preliminary deals worth billions of dollars with General Electric Co and Siemens for equipment to almost double electricity generation capacity, an energy official said on Saturday. The deals with GE, Siemens and a third company would be worth a total of $7 billion to $8 billion, Iraq’s Electricity Minister Karim Waheed told Reuters. Years of war, sanctions and neglect have battered Iraq’s power grid and the country suffers chronic power shortages. The capital Baghdad receives only a few hours of electricity a day. The deals would mark a big step in the country’s reconstruction, Waheed said. “These deals will help us to end the electricity supply problem by 2012,” Waheed said on a private visit to the United Arab Emirates. Iraq signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) earlier this month for US giant General Electric to supply turbines to generate 6,800 megawatts of power, Waheed said. He declined to say how much Iraq would pay GE for the equipment, but said each megawatt would cost between $700,000 and $800,000. That would give a value of between $4.8 billion and $5.4 billion. The country has signed a second MOU with Germany’s Siemens to supply equipment to generate another 2,000 MW, he added. That deal would be worth between $1.4 billion and $1.6 billion. Baghdad was negotiating with a third company for another 1,000 MW, he said, declining to give further details. The three deals would enable Iraq to add around 10,000 MW to installed capacity by around 11,000 MW. Damage to the power stations, lack of maintenance and drought mean Iraq’s actual power production is well under capacity at around 5,500 MW. Demand stands at around 11,000 MW, Waheed said. Iraq plans to approach engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) firms to build the plants once the deals are signed, he added. While big international companies were still reluctant to send people to work in Iraq, improvements in security had improved Baghdad’s chances of attracting companies to undertake the work, he said. Iraqi oil officials will meet Russia’s Technoprom Export on Oct 12 to review a $124 million deal to repair 400 MW of power generation capacity in the southern city of Basra. The World Bank will fund the deal, he added. The deal was one of several frozen after the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Iraq is also negotiating with Russia’s Power Machines to revive another old deal to build two plants with 160 MW of capacity each in Iraq’s north, he added. Iraq signed a deal with GE for three power plants worth $480 million in June. September 27, 2008