A new report from Global Water Intelligence indicates that tighter environmental regulations and water scarcity are pushing power plant operators to rethink their water supplies and wastewater strategies, creating great opportunity within the water industry.
Water and wastewater treatment in the power industry already is big business, worth $2.1 billion in 2013; the total value of this market is expected to reach $2.9 billion in 2018. The report states that the growth of the market is based on three principal drivers: rapid economic development and industrialization in developing countries; the need to secure a reliable source of water to operate power generation facilities; and the need to reduce the environmental impact of the power industry.
According to the report, power plant owners will increasingly outsource water treatment operations so they can focus on generating electricity. Outsourcing contracts will continue to be an attractive option for plant operators, which are dealing both with aging infrastructure and increasingly degraded feedwater quality. Service companies can provide value to the power industry in three key areas: chemicals, mobile water treatment solutions and the operation of onsite water treatment systems.
