From left: Dr Pang Chee Meng, Chief Engineering and Technology Officer, Chew Chee Keong, Director, Water Supply (Plants) Department, and Bernard Koh, Assistant Chief Executive of PUB with PUB’s awards at the IWA World Congress
Singapore, 14 September 2022 - National Water Agency PUB’s upgraded Choa Chu Kang Waterworks (CCKWW) that houses the world’s largest ceramic membrane system has won Gold in the “Market-changing Water Technology & Infrastructure” category at the 2022 IWA Project Innovation Awards. PUB’s Changi Water Reclamation Plant (CWRP) Digital Twin project and the Keppel Marina East Desalination Plant (KMEDP) were also conferred Gold award in the “Performance Improvement and Operational Solutions” and “Exceptional Project Execution and Delivery” categories respectively. KMEDP also clinched the top award – the IWA Grand Innovation Award, which is presented to the most outstanding example of innovation in the water sector for its unconventional dual-mode water treatment plant.
2. The biennial IWA Project Innovation Awards is a distinguished international industry platform that celebrates and recognises leadership and innovation in sustainable water management. There are six categories with three finalists each and the Awards were presented at the 2022 IWA World Congress & Exhibition held in Copenhagen, Denmark on 13 September. The three PUB projects emerged amid a highly contested judging process featuring a total of 203 entries from 52 countries.
3. "PUB has been embracing digitalisation and adopting new technologies to optimise our operations, and ensure a resilient and sustainable water supply for Singapore. We are honoured to receive the Awards, which are testament to PUB’s continuous innovation and R&D efforts in advancing water resilience and environmental sustainability. We will continue to push the frontiers in our quest to build a more resilient and greener water system," said Goh Si Hou, Chief Executive, PUB.
More cost-efficient advanced ceramic membrane technology
Left to right: Ceramic membrane system and Ozone-BAC carbon filters at the upgraded CCKWW
4. CCKWW is one of Singapore’s oldest water treatment plants built in two phases in 1975 and 1981. It underwent a three-year upgrade in 2016 to enhance the robustness of its water treatment processes by deploying cutting-edge ceramic membrane technology. The large-scale deployment of the ceramic membrane technology at CCKWW was the result of years of research and rigorous testing.
5. Today, CCKWW houses a large scale 40 million gallons per day (mgd) ceramic membrane system, with ozone-biological activated (Ozone-BAC) carbon filters added to strengthen the disinfection and treatment process. With this system in place, the plant can carry out advanced treatment of raw water in a more efficient manner, while occupying a smaller footprint. It also allows PUB to cope with the impact of an increasingly urbanised catchment and the effects of climate change on raw water quality.
6. Ceramic membranes are also more cost-efficient with a longer lifespan of 20 years as compared to polymeric membranes, which are usually replaced about once every five years. Most importantly, water loss is reduced significantly from 5% to 1% with the use of ceramic membranes.
Singapore’s first dual-mode desalination plant treating seawater and freshwater
7. Opened in February 2021, KMEDP is Singapore’s fourth desalination plant, and also the first large-scale, dual-mode desalination plant. It can produce up to 30 million gallons (54 Olympic-size swimming pools’ equivalent) of fresh drinking water per day, by treating either seawater or freshwater, depending on the prevailing weather conditions, thus strengthening Singapore’s water supply resilience.
8. The entire water treatment facility and pumping station are located underground, freeing up the space above for social recreation. There is nearly 20,000 square metres of open green rooftop space for community activity and recreation, seamlessly integrated with the surrounding greenery. KMEDP is operated by Marina East Water Pte Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Keppel Infrastructure, under the Design, Build, Own and Operate (DBOO) arrangement with National Water Agency PUB.
Digital twin platform to improve operations resilience in treatment plants
9. In 2019, PUB and Jacobs Engineering Group jointly developed a digital twin for CWRP as a dynamic simulation model with predictive capabilities to analyse the impact of operational changes on plant performance, without affecting actual plant operations. The digital twin replicates the plant’s processes, retrieves real-time data for processing, analyses the information and feeds it into the digital twin to simulate real operations of the entire plant.
10. By doing so, it can alert operators to irregularities in plant performance and enhances the operation resilience at CWRP. It can also be used for operator training, and scenario planning to safely evaluate operating strategies before implementing them.
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