The largest drinking water purification plant in Europe to feature GE’s ZeeWeed 500 advanced water treatment technology is under construction in Ravenna, Italy. Located on the east coast of Italy, close to the Adriatic Sea and part of the Mediterranean Sea, this popular tourist destination needed a way to ensure increased water supply as a result of repeated water shortages, and high-quality drinking water for residents and visitors.
Several years ago, Romagna Acque – Società delle Fonti SpA, the public company in charge of the water wholesale supply for Italy’s Romagna region, realized it needed to heavily invest in supplementing its existing water supply to ensure water always is available. The municipality selected GE’s membrane technology for the project due to its ability to convert deteriorated raw source water into high-quality, safe drinking water.
“Our region’s economy depends on industrial assets and on seasonal tourists who come to Ravenna’s coastal area for popular beaches and historical sites. Safe and reliable drinking water is essential to ensuring visitors continue to patronize the Romagna region,” said Andrea Gambi, CEO, Romagna Acque – Società delle Fonti SpA. “We had been experiencing water shortages and needed to add to our reliable supply of water. Building a new drinking water plant with GE’s ZeeWeed technology is the key to turning the river into a safe and dependable source of potable water.”
Once operational, the new drinking water plant utilizing GE’s technology will treat an average flow of 95 million liters per day (mld), which is enough water to serve approximately 400,000 people. GE will provide the technology to the engineering, procurement and construction joint venture led by Torricelli S.r.l., in partnership with Degrémont SpA. Featuring 40 cassettes filled with ZeeWeed 500 modules and distributed in eight filtration trains, the new facility will be the largest potable plant of its kind in Europe using GE technology.
“In recent years, Italy’s Romagna region has been afflicted with a limited and deteriorating water supply from conventional sources such as reservoirs and aquifers and was forced to turn to alternative water bodies, which can have severely deteriorated quality. Sophisticated water treatment processes, like GE’s ZeeWeed ultrafiltration technology, are ideal for when tough, raw source water needs to be turned into potable water,” said Yuvbir Singh, general manager, engineered systems—water and process technologies for GE Power & Water. “More and more governments and municipalities are looking into new ways to safely and reliably generate potable water, regardless of how deteriorated the original water source.”
Source: GE
