Vista Analyse på Kimolos i forbindelse med BriZE-prosjektet

Vista Analyse, represented by Haakon Vennemo and Herman Ringdal, visited the Greek island Kimolos. The reason for Vista’s visit was BriZE, a project together with the Agricultural University of Athens. The project is financed by EEA Grants by 1.100.000€.

The main targets of the project are to secure the uninterruptible and rational water supply of Kimolos, and at the same time mitigate the environmental footprint of desalination plants.

The project secure both todays demand of potable water, and the future demand increase due to an expected increase in tourism streams, thorugh the installation of a new Reverse Osmosis (RO) desalination unit with a capacity of 220 m3/day. The desalination unit is practically an extension of the existing desalination plant which will increase the total freshwater production capacity by 221 m3/day. The new plant it self is sufficient to cover the needs during winter months, and together with the old plant, the total production capacity during summer months is 821 m3/day.

The environmental issues of the desalination plant are both the energy consumption and the disposal of the high concentration brine. To reduce the emissions from energy consumption, there is installed a PhotoVoltaic array (PV) of 100 kWp, which cover 70 % of the energy consumption of the new plant throughout the year. The high concentration reject (brine) is treated in part by an innovative Brine Treatment System (BTS) of a 1.0 m3/day capacity.

Kimolos is a small island of around 600 inhabitants, wich triples during summer. Kimolos is in the southwest of Cyclades in the Aegean Sea and covers an area of 37 km² while having a coastline of 45 km. Kimolos is a dry island, and before the first desalination unit was installed, water was transported by ships from the mainland, with a cost higher than 10 €/m³.

Vista visited Kimolos to take part in a conference informing the inhabitants of the new desalination unit, and the official opening of the unit.