The Straits Times / The Business Times News on Hyflux

Water supplied by technology, not nature

WATER sourcing is no longer a simple matter of waiting for rain to fall into reservoirs or buying water from other countries.

While these are the two traditional 'taps' in Singapore's Four National Taps Programme, it is thanks to research and development, not nature, that the two newest and most important taps - Newater and desalination - have been created.

Together, they have turned what used to be Singapore's vulnerability - a dependency on unreliable entities for a vital and scarce resource - into a strength, as well as a viable economic growth sector.

On March 6, the PUB won the prestigious Water Agency of the Year 2006 award in Dubai.

Local company Hyflux won the award for Water Company Of The Year while the SingSpring Desalination Plant at Tuas was runner-up in its category.

Hyflux, of course, is the water treatment company commissioned to work on the Bedok and Seletar processing plants for the PUB-developed Newater.

By the end of this year, the fourth Newater plant at Ulu Pandan will be up and running, together with the existing ones in Bedok and Seletar, as well as Kranji.

By 2011, PUB aims to supply 248 million litres of Newater a day, or more than 15 per cent of Singapore's total water needs.

Apart from used water, Singapore is also harnessing sea water.

SingSpring, one of the largest desalination plants in the world, cost $200 million and is operated by Hyflux, in partnership with PUB.

It will supply PUB with 136 million litres of water a day over a period of 20 years.

Not only can Singapore now 'create' its own water from previously untenable sources, it can also do so cheaply.

Says Mr Khoo: 'Before 2001, desalination basically involved boiling water, or thermal distillation. That requires a lot of energy and is very expensive.

'But because of the revolution in membranes and reverse osmosis technology, in the last five years, costs have come down considerably,' he added.

'We used to think desalination costs $4 per cubic metre treated. But when we awarded the contract to Hyflux, the first-year cost was only 78 cents per cubic metre, one of the lowest in the world.'

In subsequent years, the figure could go up or down, depending on a complex formula which factors in things like fuel prices.

'When you go to international water forums, they talk about that as the benchmark,' he adds proudly.

Newater - at about 30 cents per cubic metre treated - is even cheaper than desalination.

The two together are expected to supply a quarter of Singapore's water needs by 2011.

Theoretically, the sky's the limit, says Mr Khoo as recycling ensures an 'almost infinite supply' of water going around the same water chain.

Technology is also being used to manage another of Singapore's scarce resources - land.

'We have a lot of rain. Our problem is we don't have enough land to harness it,' says Mr Khoo.

Not only is there a need to maximise water catchment, treatment plants also need to take up as little space as possible.

Hence the new Deep Tunnel Sewerage System (DTSS) in Changi, which is due to be completed in 2008.

Previously, sewerage pipes channelled used water to reclamation plants.

The pipes took up a lot of valuable land, and also were subject to the whims of pumping mains which could overflow or rupture and pollute water catchments.

In 1987, two sewage pumping mains burst and spilled their pollutants into the Kallang River.

The DTSS, which will cost $3.65 billion, will rely totally on gravity to convey used water. It will take up only one-third of the total land area of existing plants.

Furthermore, future Newater plants at Changi can just be built on top of the DTSS, ensuring even more land savings.