ABSTRACT
High-complexity projects typically have source water with a high membrane fouling potential which requires elaborate pretreatment and process monitoring and have fully automated plant operations, which require a very skilled staff and compliance with very stringent environmental regulations and/or product water quality requirements. Concentrate disposal costs include expenditures associated with operation and maintenance (O&M) of the outfall facilities, concentrate injection wells, evaporation ponds, or mechanical evaporation equipment if disposal methods are used. These costs may vary widely depending on the disposal method and project size. Annual desalination plant power costs are dependent on two key parameters the power tariff and the amount of power used to produce desalinated water. The rule-of-thumb range method could be used to determine the breakdown of the annual O&M costs into variable and fixed components, which is very useful when calculating the total cost of water production.
