Las Palmas III - the success story of brine staging

The desalination experience in Spain has been primarily initiated in the Ca nary Islands. A combination of scarce water sources and high water requirem ents to fulfill the two major industries, tourism and agricultural, has for ced these islands to develop and experience with the major desalting techno logies available. At the Jinamar plane in the desalting pedigree was initia ted in 1969 with the installation of 4x5,000m(3)/d low temperature MSF Wesp oor plants (Las Palmas I), followed in 1981 by the 2x10,000 high temperatur e Babcock Wilcox MSF plants (Las Palmas H) and finally the installation in 1989 of 4x6,000m(3)/d RO plants (Las Palmas IH), followed by an additional 2x6,000m(3)/d commissioned in 1992. In 1995 Emalsa took over the operation of Las Palmas III. A new 8,000-m(3)/d train has been recently installed. Th is paper will present the performance of the latter plant after the major o verhauls carried out to improving water quality and production performance and reducing energy costing, The Las Palmas III water intake has, because o f its surface nature, substantial amounts of organic matter and consequentl y fouling is a major problem in the operation of the plant. A brief summary of steps taken to control/reduce this fouling will also be presented.