IDE Technologies has completed commissioning of the first desalination unit for SDIC, a Chinese state-owned energy company.

The unit is located at a power plant being constructed 200 kilometres northeast of Beijing. Its electricity capacity of 4000 Megawatts per hour will meet the growing needs of Tianjin City and alleviate electricity shortage in northern China.

This is the first of four units planned to provide desalinated seawater for the power plant's steam boilers, as well as drinking water for local residents. The four units will use the Multi Effect Distillation (MED) process in which seawater is heated by steam and then circulated in an adequate evaporator. The MED plants have ecological benefits as they use waste heat from adjacent industrial or power plants to produce water, in effect creating clean water from heat that otherwise would be discharged to the atmosphere.