After all the activity this week, we can expect to see new desalination plants pop up in exciting places all over the world, including Qatar, Singapore, South Australia, Djibouti, and Saudi Arabia.  To find out what else is going on in water around the world, continue reading below:

M&A/ Partnerships

• The Desalination Research Institute and Hitachi Zosen of Japan have signed a 3-year research cooperation agreement to develop a way to use solar thermal energy in the operation of desalination plants.  Pilot tests will determine optimal design and operating conditions using a pulsed multi-stage design.
  http://www.desalination.biz/news/news_story.asp?id=6243&title=Saudi-Japanese+agreement+on+solar-thermal+desalination+research
• Aquatech has finalized a cooperation agreement with WasserBauGesellschaft Kulmbach GmbH (WBG), a leading water technology company based in Germany, to hold the exclusive North American license for WBG’s RSR Plus® Condensate Polishing Technology.  The technology will expand Aquatech’s range of offerings to customers in the power generation, semiconductor, electronics and chemical industries.
  http://www.desalination.biz/news/news_story.asp?id=6249&title=German+water-polishing+licence+granted+to+Aquatech
• State water utility Umgeni Water will receive a €35m loan from the European Investment Bank to improve water infrastructure in the city of Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.  The utility will use the funding for new pipelines and upgrading of existing water supply, water treatment works, pumping and service reservoirs in its operational area.
  http://www.water-technology.net/news/newsumgeni-water-to-receive-eib-loan-for-water-projects-in-south-africa

Projects

• Tri-Tech was awarded an $8.3 million contract to provide a seawater desalination unit for the Utility Plant of Qatar Petrochemical.  Under the terms of the contract, Tri-Tech U.S. will provide a Multiple Effect Thermocompression desalination unit with a design capacity of 240 cubic meters per hour (or 5,760 cubic meters per day).
  http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/tri-tech-holding-wins-83-million-contract-for-a-seawater-desalination-unit-in-middle-east-135089383.html
• Siemens received an order from Hyflux subsidiary Hydrochem (S) Pte Ltd to supply the power block and other main components for the new combined-cycle power plant in Singapore. As part of the largest seawater desalination Tuaspring in Singapore, the plant will deliver around 411MW of environmentally friendly electricity.
  http://www.eco-business.com/press-releases/siemens-awarded-power-plant-order-from-singapore%E2%80%A8/
• Osmoflo commissioned a 4,000 m³/d SWRO desalination plant for OneSteel in Whyalla, South Australia, to replace water currently drawn from the Murray river.  Osmoflo financed, designed and built the desalination plant and will operate it on behalf of OneSteel for a period of 10 years.
  http://www.desalination.biz/news/news_story.asp?id=6246&title=Osmoflo+commissions+4%2C000%26%23160%3Bm%26%23179%3B%2Fd+SWRO+desalination+plant
• The government of Djibouti in east Africa is planning to build a 45,000 m³/d desalination plant with European Union finance.
  http://www.desalination.biz/news/news_story.asp?id=6245&title=Djibouti+%27planning+desalination+plant+with+EU+aid%27
• CH2M HILL Constructors has started operations of the new $173m Spokane County (Washington) water reclamation facility.  The new facility will treat around eight million gallons of wastewater a day and produce Class-A reclaimed water for beneficial reuse.  The facility’s treatment process uses membrane filtration technology, which has six million individual membrane fibres that filter out nearly all of the suspended solids in the wastewater.
  http://www.water-technology.net/news/newsch2m-hill-begins-operations-of-173m-water-reclamation-facility-in-the-us
• Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies has upgraded the water treatment facility at the Sasol Synfuels refinery in Secunda, South Africa, to increase the plant’s production capacity with the addition of a fourth water treatment train.  Production capacity will be increased to nearly 600 m3/h of condensate and 330 m3/h of polished water.
  http://www.water-technology.net/news/newsveolia-upgrades-water-treatment-facility-at-sasol-synfuels-refinery

Innovation/ New Products

• TaKaDu released a new version of its software, TaKaDu 4.1, which, according to the company, features “enhanced detection of small, prolonged leaks; clearer event location information; shortcuts to key functions from the main events screen; larger, clearer graphs, now easier to manipulate and save; enhanced alert emails; more data extraction and export capabilities, and much more.”
  http://takadu.wordpress.com/2011/12/04/announcing-takadus-new-version-takadu-4-1/
• Mann+Hummel has developed a new range of hollow fibre membranes made from PES (polyether sulphone) for use in water filtration – particularly in applications requiring temperature and chemical stability.
  http://www.filtsep.com/view/22403/mannhummel-develops-pes-hollow-fibre-membranes/
• Germany-based Elster and Australia’s Freestyle Technology have integrated ZigBee technology from Ember, a supplier of wireless semi-conductor solutions, into the new Elster V200 digital water meter to serve global markets.
  http://www.water-technology.net/news/newselster-freestyle-integrate-ember-zigbee-technology-into-v200-water-meter

Other

• Saudi Arabia’s National Water Co is set to invest about $66.4bn in water and wastewater projects over the next eight years, with around $11bn spent on desalination projects and $30.66bn spent on improving the water supply between 2012-20.
  http://www.water-technology.net/news/newsnational-water-to-invest-664bn-in-water-and-wastewater-projects
• The government of Canada refuses to make a second commitment to Kyoto emission targets once the current period expires in 2012.  Ottawa wants Kyoto to be replaced with an international treaty that would include all major emitters, including the United States, China and India.
  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/tories-serve-notice-that-canada-will-pull-out-of-kyoto-climate-deal/article2260160/?utm_medium=Feeds%3A%20RSS%2FAtom&utm_source=Politics&utm_content=2260160

Arti Patel is a Research Analyst at Cleantech Group.