Now there is a drop in the capacity of Nemmeli desalination plant
Posted on: 07/Sep/2019 9:49:35 AM
The desalination plant located at Nemmeli has been supplying drinking water to the city of Chennai is well known. It is now revealed that the capacity of this desalination plant at Nemmeli has dropped by 60% now from its estimated daily generation of 100 mld. The reason for that was due to the choking of the intake pipeline that draws water from the sea to the desal plant.
Rising marine pollution has been responsible for the choking of the intake pipeline. This was as per the officials. An official spoke about how the reason for the choking could be because of marine organisms or due to other pollutants. It must be noted that the biochemical oxygen demand or BOD in the water is also high close to the plant and it could due to pollution.
Water intake analysis is considered important as it would provide a solution now and for that purpose the metro water has approached the NIOT scientists. It is known that Nemmeli desalination plant has got a capacity of 100 mld and it is also one of the 2 plants in the Chennai city with such capacity.
The working of this Nememeli desalination plant is based on the reverse osmosis technology. The information is these 2 power intensive plants could produce around 80 million litres on a given day. It is worthy to note that these 2 desalination plants in Chennai contributes to around 38% that is 160 MLD of total 525 MLD of drinking water supplied to the Chennai city. It is now said that the shortfall of Nemmeli desalination plant could affect the drinking water supply in Chennai.
Many places in Chennai such as Adyar, Velachery, Besant Nagar, Sholinganallur, ECR, Neelankarai, Kottivakkam, Palavakkam, Perungudi and Thiruvanmiyur gets drinking water supply from this Nemmeli desalination plant. At the Kalpakkam power plant, the presence of external intake structures plays an important role in drawing water is known. In Nemmeli desalination plant the intake pipeline is submerged at a depth of 6 m to 8 m and due to this the periodic maintenance is difficult. Finally, it was confirmed by an official belonging to the metro water department that Nemmeli desalination plant is not working to its capacity.
