2022 Winners

An Israel-based water treatment and desalination expert, investing in and building some of the world’s most high-concept plants, including desalting facilities which are among the largest and most cost-effective in the world.

Despite a slump in the global desalination contracting market, IDE saw a bumper year in 2021: growing revenue by 30% and making crucial progress on projects in four continents that will add 1 million m3/d of capacity to its portfolio. Plants at Sorek B (Israel), Formosa Plastics (Taiwan) and others show a company that is willing to take on desal challenges wherever and however they arise.

The water business of Spanish construction giant Acciona and the driving force behind the design and construction of some of the world’s largest and most advanced desalination plants. Its portfolio of delivered projects covers 80 desalination plants with a combined capacity of almost 6 million m3/d.

Acciona continued its role as the high-tech EPC contractor of choice for the huge desalination markets of the Gulf in 2021, scooping up a host of key references and delivering on major ongoing projects, while simultaneously demonstrating its excellence in new areas of business around the world.

Donec metus. Proin eget dui. Cras ultricies metus. Praesent facilisis adipiscing mi. Donec mattis justo quis ligula. Cras in nibh. Pellentesque egestas metus vel ligula fermentum facilisis. Donec lacinia. Sed elit. Nulla et est. Suspendisse neque ligula, luctus ac, ullamcorper mollis, elementum quis, felis. Nullam gravida nunc nec pede. Quisque fermentum diam at nibh. Vestibulum euismod vestibulum dui.

Schneider’s prowess in the digital water sector was underlined by the release of the new version of its EcoStruxure Automation Expert offering, which manages full automation of the water and wastewater lifecycle. Water operators now have the freedom to break their dependency on proprietary hardware suppliers as the automation software can be separated from the hardware. The world’s first software-centric industrial automation system is a game-changer in driving sustainability for future-proof water and wastewater plant operations.

A developer of multiple technologies aimed at solving the toughest challenges in the industrial water sector.

Gradiant’s counterflow reverse osmosis (CFRO) system has made membrane brine concentration a reality for global industrial and municipal sectors, but the application goes beyond minimising brine. At existing seawater facilities, CFRO can increase permeate output without new intake or pretreatment works. For new SWRO facilities, membrane brine concentration has made recovery rates of 60-75% viable, radically shifting long-standing design paradigms.

A Canadian start-up optimising the performance of desalination plants through machine learning.

The low-hanging fruit to optimise reverse osmosis desalination has already been harvested and it is accumulation of marginal gains that will get further results. Synauta is at the forefront of the next evolution in desalination where continuous analysis from its machine learning system will give EPC contractors the edge in helping operators optimise their plants.

An Israeli developer of a high-recovery reverse osmosis system which alternates the flow direction every few hours to take advantage of the initial slow stage of most chemical reactions that lead to scale formation.

FR-RO has gone mainstream in sensational fashion – it is now being implemented in Singapore PUB’s 288,000m3/d Changi wastewater treatment plant, following on from success of demonstration projects at Kranji and Tuas. Rotec also executed the retrofit of a 6.8MGD (39,200m3/d) drinking water treatment plant with the City of Santa Monica in California.

The ministry responsible for policy and strategy ensuring sustainable development and quality of services in the fields of the environment, water and agriculture in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The Kingdom’s huge water privatisation programme – the largest in the world and a pathfinder for infrastructure as a whole in the country – made huge progress in 2021. Large swathes of the portfolio of countrywide utility the National Water Company were brought under private oversight through the “cluster” management programme, while the procurement of key assets in desalination, wastewater treatment, water storage, transmission and other areas using private finance stepped up a pace.

The state-owned utility providing water supply and wastewater collection, treatment and recycling services to more than 1.7 million customers in South Australia.

The utility made a huge move towards long-term environmental sustainability in 2021. In October it made a commitment to achieving zero net emissions by 2050, a target that was later brought forward to 2030. At the same time, its ongoing Zero Cost Future Energy programme began to take fully effect last year – a quarter of the utility’s fleet was replaced by electric vehicles, and the installation of 370,000 solar PV panels with an annual output of 242 GWh and 34 MWh of battery storage covers an average of 70% of energy requirements and allow the body to consider a truly post-carbon future.

A 38,880m3/d SWRO plant serving more than 210,000 people in the Copiapó region in the Atacama, the world’s driest non-polar desert. It is Chile’s largest desalination plant designed solely for drinking water production to date.

The innovative use of an in-line process design and an adaptable intake setup that maximises seawater pump efficiency means the plant operates at an energy performance level that can be as low as the 2.63kWh/m3 achieved during the performance test, an astonishing new benchmark for the industry.

A $700 million, 600,000m3/d privately owned SWRO desalination plant on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast, supplying water to the cities of Jeddah and Mecca.

The plant stakes a strong claim as the most energy efficient ever to be built, accounting for its size, location and source water quality. The use of a managed pressure centre approach to RO allows for a more efficient use of fewer, larger and more efficient high-pressure pumps. Alongside other innovations, this means the plant operates at an average power consumption rate of around 3.1kWh/m3, smashing the 3.5kWh/m3 benchmark set by the client and outlining a future for energy efficiency on the largest scale.

An RMB920 million ($150 million), 100,000m3/d renovation and upgrade of a 400,000m3/d water treatment plant – significantly increasing the operating capacity and introducing ultrafiltration (UF) and nanofiltration (NF) treatment to help serve 1.5 million residents in the city of Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu Province in China.

The expansion makes the plant the joint largest nanofiltration membrane drinking water facilities in China on top of its existing capabilities, not only marking a new level of success for the technology, but setting the stage for its deployment in advanced drinking water treatment across the country. A further capacity phase of 200,000m3/d is now under construction, which will make the facility the largest of its kind in the world.

The emergency deployment of a chemical-free nanobubble water treatment system that rapidly remediated foul odours emanating from the Dominguez Channel in Los Angeles County, after chemical run-off from a major fire in the City of Carson brought hydrogen sulphide levels in the water to 230 times the state standard.

When noxious, rotten-egg odours caused by a hydrogen sulphide spike in the Dominguez Channel resulted in the urgent relocation of 3,200 residents experiencing headaches, sore throats, nausea and burning eyes, LA County Public Works sought an emergency chemical-free solution. Where traditional, surface-breaking aeration of the shallow channel would have released toxic levels of hydrogen sulphide into the already-noxious air, Moleaer’s proprietary generators dispersed neutrally buoyant nanobubbles through the water, destroying hydrogen sulphide without off-gassing.

A 2,300 p.e. recovery system in the Oceanhamnen district of the Swedish city of Helsingborg. It pioneers an energy-efficient, circular sanitation process that source-separates blackwater, greywater and food waste through separate pipelines to recover nutrients, produce biogas and recycle wastewater to drinking water quality.

Recolab is the largest source-separated sanitation plant in the world using circular treatment to efficiently recycle greywater, blackwater and food waste. Greywater and food waste are collected by two gravity sewers while blackwater is collected with an efficient vacuum sewer, which reduces water consumption for the system as a whole by at least 25%.

A colossal 5.6 million m3/d tertiary wastewater treatment and sludge handling plant in Sinai, Egypt, taking polluted water from the Bahr el-Baqar drain (a combination of industrial effluent, sewage and agricultural runoff). Water is treated with a combination of coagulation, flocculation, settling, filtration and disinfection before being transported under the Suez Canal and reused for irrigation in newly-created agricultural land. The total value of the project was in the region of $739 million.

The scale of the project is difficult to encompass – it is by some measures the largest wastewater treatment plant in the world, and proves that investment in mega-scale water infrastructure projects can have an immediate for the environment and water resources.

A $185 million privately owned and operated waste-to-energy project located in San Bernardino County, California, that converts up to 1,000 tons a day of wastewater biosolids and food waste into renewable natural gas and agricultural fertiliser.

The largest organic waste-to-energy project in North America, the Rialto bioenergy facility is designed to produce up to 985,000 MMBTU of renewable natural gas each year. By reducing the landfilling of organic waste and producing a carbon-negative fuel, the project’s net carbon dioxide emissions reduction is approximately 220,000 metric tons annually – equivalent to taking 47,500 cars off the road.

A water recyling plant (WRP) at the Carlsberg brewery in Fredericia, Denmark. The WRP makes use of technologies such as ultrafiltration, reverse osmosis and advanced oxidation processes, to recycle the brewery’s effluent, producing high-quality water that is reused in the brewery’s own processes. A part of Carlsberg’s Zero Water Waste ambition, the project dramatically increased the brewery’s water efficiency and reduced produced waste.

The project has turned Carlsberg’s Fredericia facility into what it claims is the world’s most water and waste efficient brewery, accomplishing a 50% reduction in water consumption and meaning just 1.4 litres of water is required per litre of beer produced. Additionally, the RO plant, which based upon the closed circuit reverse osmosis concept, reaches 90% recovery resulting in a 90% reduction in wastewater discharge. Excess produced sludge is used as fertiliser for organic farming.The WRP has also proven to be an extremely energy efficient solution, producing an energy surplus that corresponds to four times the plant’s own energy needs and fueling 10% of the entire brewery’s energy demand. This is possible thanks to the upflow anaerobic sludge bed reactor that converts approximately 85% of COD into biogas.

A 120,000GPD (450m3/d) evaporation solution for reverse osmosis (RO) concentrate at the Waverly landfill site in Virginia, US. The existing water resource recovery facility (WRRF) first processes the landfill leachate through biological and membrane treatment (ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis) followed by ion exchange. This project addresses the challenges of RO concentrate waste stream treatment and disposal.

The evaporation solution has massively decreased the need to treat and dispose of the RO reject off-site, reducing the carbon footprint of the landfill by avoiding the emission of 5,500 metric tons of CO2 annually, the equivalent to approximately 12,000 barrels of oil per year. Additionally, the RO concentrate evaporation facility is fuelled by biogas produced in the landfill, helping to decrease the facility’s overall energy consumption.

DC Water provides water and wastewater services to more than 700,000 residents and 21.3 million annual visitors with a total service area of 725 square miles. In 2021, DC Water began working together with Layermark to develop an event management system (EMS) which acts as an early warning system for non-routine events, which was completed in February 2022. The EMS includes real-time Flood Track and Water Track dashboards as well as an Incident Tracking Tool and Resource Management Tool.

This project is a shining example of utility climate resilience at its best. In response to the increasing frequency of extreme weather events and the challenge of ageing infrastructure, DC Water has taken a leading proactive approach that enables it to actually utilise all its available data to more quickly pinpoint problems, generate automatic alerts, optimise event response, minimise customer impacts and reduce recovery times.One of the biggest barriers to progression that utilities worldwide face is the reliance on siloed management platforms which prevent effective integration and utilisation of data. In under six months, DC Water has transformed its operations, placing emphasis on an effective, easy-to-use dashboard that provides everyone access to real-time data and performance monitoring.

Evides NV provides water service to 2.5 million customers in the south-western region of the Netherlands. In 2020 into 2021, it worked with Bentley Systems to develop a digital twin of the water supply network to optimise pumping and ultimately reduce carbon footprint.

As result of this project, the pumping stations now use 33% less energy resulting in a carbon reduction of 942,000 kilograms per year. This equates to energy cost savings of approximately €300,000 annually.

A state-owned wastewater utility that owns and operates 11 treatment plants in Beijing with a combined capacity of 4,230,000m3/d, serving 17 million people.

The group’s innovation partnerships for sludge treatment paid off in spades in 2021. BDG’s five sludge treatment centres, with a combined capacity of over 1,200 tonnes of dry solids per day, implemented an advanced packaged solution comprising Cambi’s thermal hydrolysis process, Purac’s anaerobic digestion process, and BDG’s self-developed anaerobic ammonium oxidation technology, making the group a true champion for sludge management in China.

A not-for-profit company wholly owned by the Government of Odisha, India. WATCO provides water supply and sewerage services in various cities in the state of Odisha, with the long-term goal of scaling up its operations to cover the entire state and beyond.

The city of Puri, which attracts 2 million tourists a year to visit its temples, became the first of its size in India to achieve the “24×7” water distinction in 2021, guaranteeing uninterrupted access to safe potable water for all citizens. WATCO became the first utility in India to provide 24×7 water in one of its major cities and is now currently in the process of expanding the model to 20+ more towns and cities, including state capital Bhubaneswar.

A NYSE-listed global water technology leader which has put energy efficiency at the heart of its innovative product portfolio.

Xylem has established far-reaching sustainability goals that seek to reduce water’s CO2 footprint by over 2.8 million metric tons by 2025. In 2020 alone the company reported carbon reductions of 0.7 million metric tons -- equivalent to keeping 150,000 cars off the road.

An engineering consulting giant deploying a technology-led services portfolio to slash the carbon footprint of its global water customer base.

Net Zero Labs, launched by Jacobs in 2021, is a collaborative workshop that helps clients set ambitious and realisable emissions reduction targets, underpinned by Jacobs’ ‘Plan Beyond 2.0’ climate change mitigation strategy. Through its diverse suite of water sector carbon reduction and carbon capture pilot programmes, Jacobs is utilising its reach and resources to provide climate-smart, reproducible case studies to the global water industry.

A Pennsylvania-based engineering solutions company developing breakthrough technology to reduce energy consumption in water purification systems. The firm's energy recovery development work has been funded by both the US Bureau of Reclamation and the Department of Energy, supporting its mission to make clean water more accessible and affordable.

The company's Sliding Element Energy Recovery device represents a significant advancement in membrane-based water treatment, with the potential to dramatically lower the operating expenses of reverse osmosis systems. In 2021, the firm continued refining its technology through federal partnerships while expanding its manufacturing capabilities and client base across Fortune 500 companies, academia, and government facilities.

A Spanish private water operator and EPC contractor serving 45 million people worldwide. It is backed by FCC and private equity house IFM.

Aqualia's high-efficiency aquaporin membranes, microalgae-based nutrient recovery, and innovative biogas-upgrading processes to lower energy use and maximize resource recovery. Digital technologies—AI, IoT sensors, and smart SCADA systems—optimize operations and reduce losses.

Central Arkansas Water (CAW) is the largest water utility in Arkansas, serving around 500,000 people across eight counties. It draws its water from two surface sources, Lake Maumelle and Lake Winona, and treats it via three plants — including the major Jack H. Wilson Treatment Plant.

CAW manages over 2,300 miles of distribution pipes, thousands of hydrants, and valves. Central Arkansas WaterGoverned by a public board, its mission is to deliver high-quality, affordable, and dependable water while promoting sustainability and economic growth.

Mekorot is a global leader in water reuse, providing Israel with one of the world’s highest recycling rates for agriculture. Its technologies in leakage control, water quality monitoring, and drought resilience are exported internationally. By combining engineering, innovation, and national planning, Mekorot has transformed severe water scarcity into long-term reliability and sustainability.

It operates the National Water Carrier, which moves water from the Sea of Galilee to population centers, and integrates large-scale desalination, recycled wastewater, and advanced groundwater systems.

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) is a regional wholesale water provider founded in 1928 to deliver imported water to Southern California. Serving about 19 million people across six counties, it supplies member agencies through major systems like the Colorado River Aqueduct and the State Water Project.

It oversees infrastructure investments, conservation programs, and regional planning. Recent priorities include addressing drought impacts, modernizing facilities, managing rising costs, and improving organizational stability to ensure a resilient and dependable water supply for the region.