Industry News
2026-10-172026年10月13日, the Yantai Public Resources Trading Network has announced the bid result — the EPC of the Reclaimed Water Project supplying Huaneng Fushan Power Plant from Nanjiao Wastewater Treatment Plant was won by the consortium led by Jinan Urban Construction Group, with a planned investment of approximately 1.13亿 yuan. The project adopts the Ultrafiltration + Reverse Osmosis process, with a near-term reclaimed water production capacity of 2.5万 cubic meters/day, and newly built water transmission pipelines of 6.7 kilometers, directly supplying the tailwater from the municipal wastewater treatment plant to coal-fired power generating units.
I. Project Award: A Consortium of Three Entities
According to the announcement on the Yantai Public Resources Trading Network (Project No. E3706002318009833), the winner of the EPC for the Reclaimed Water Project supplying Huaneng Fushan Power Plant from Nanjiao Wastewater Treatment Plant is the consortium composed of Jinan Urban Construction Group Co., Ltd., Yantai Urban Drainage Comprehensive Service Co., Ltd., and China Municipal Engineering North China Design and Research Institute Co., Ltd., with a winning bid rate of 98.8500%. The bid opening time was 2026年9月30日, and the award determination time was 10月9日.
The division of work among the three entities is clear: Jinan Urban Construction Group undertakes project construction, Yantai Urban Drainage Comprehensive Service Co., Ltd., as the local drainage operation entity, connects the wastewater plant water source with operation and maintenance, and China Municipal Engineering North China Design and Research Institute is responsible for design. This "construction + operation + design" combination is representative in point-to-point reclaimed water supply projects — because the core difficulty of such projects lies not in the scale of civil works, but in matching the three aspects of source water quality, user water quality requirements, and operational scheduling.
II. Scale and Process: 5万 tons in, 2.5万 tons out
- Water source — The current wastewater treatment scale of Nanjiao Wastewater Treatment Plant is 5万 cubic meters/day.
- Water production capacity — The near-term reclaimed water production capacity after reaching full operation is 2.5万 cubic meters/day, and in the long term all will be utilized.
- Core process — The Ultrafiltration + Reverse Osmosis dual-membrane process is adopted, with a total of 223 sets of main equipment, all domestically manufactured, including Ultrafiltration feed pumps, transformers, etc.
- Plant construction — The reclaimed water treatment station covers a total area of 9403.7 square meters, with a total building area of 3480 square meters, mainly including the reclaimed water workshop, substation, sunken green space, and ancillary facilities.
- Transmission and distribution network — The total length of reclaimed water transmission pipelines is approximately 6.7 kilometers, of which the Zhifu District section is approximately 0.5 kilometers and the Fushan District section is approximately 6.2 kilometers.
- Investment — Planned investment of approximately RMB 11300万 yuan.
From the perspective of investment intensity, 1.13亿 yuan corresponds to a water production scale of 2.5万 cubic meters/day, with a unit investment of approximately 4520元/cubic meter·day. This level falls within a reasonable range for dual-membrane industrial reclaimed water projects — the bulk of the investment is not in the membrane system itself, but in the 6.7-kilometer long-distance transmission pipelines and supporting auxiliary facilities such as substations and pump houses. This also reveals an industry rule: the economics of reclaimed water projects largely depend on the distance between the water source and the user.
III. Why a Power Plant: Water Constraints in the Thermal Power Industry
Supplying tailwater from a municipal wastewater treatment plant to a coal-fired power plant is not simply "saving water," but an inevitable choice under the water constraints of the thermal power industry.
Thermal power generation has long ranked among the major industrial water users, with rigid requirements on both water quantity and quality for unit circulating cooling make-up water and boiler feedwater. In recent years, national and local governments have put forward clear requirements for unconventional water substitution in high-water-consumption industries. Among the industrial water-saving and emission-reduction support directions listed in document Ban Jie Yue [2026] No. 148, thermal power generation is listed as the first industry requiring technical transformation such as water-saving process upgrades, wastewater recycling, and unconventional water substitution.
As a water-scarce province in northern China, Shandong faces more direct policy constraints. According to the "Shandong Province Action Plan for Comprehensively Building a Water Conservation Institutional and Policy System (2026–2030年)", Shandong proposes that by 2030年, the province's urban reclaimed water utilization rate reach 60% and the utilization volume of unconventional water reach more than 25亿 cubic meters, and requires "promoting close linkage between the upgrading and transformation of wastewater treatment plants and the allocation and utilization of reclaimed water, improving production and transmission facilities, and increasing the allocation of reclaimed water for chemical industrial parks, high water-consuming enterprises, and other users." Under this provincial target, direct connection projects between wastewater treatment plants and power plants have clear policy drivers.
IV. The Role of the Dual-Membrane Process: From Compliance Discharge to Industrial Water Quality
Even if the tailwater from municipal wastewater treatment plants meets Grade I-A or quasi-Class IV surface water standards, its salinity, hardness, chloride ions, and other indicators still cannot directly meet the requirements for circulating cooling and boiler make-up water of power generation units. This is precisely where the value of the Ultrafiltration + Reverse Osmosis combination lies:
- Ultrafiltration — retains suspended solids, colloids, and most microorganisms, greatly reducing effluent turbidity and the Silt Density Index (SDI), providing qualified feed water for reverse osmosis and serving as a key pre-barrier for extending membrane life.
- Reverse Osmosis — removes dissolved salts and produces high-quality reclaimed water with low salinity, which can be used directly as make-up water for circulating cooling water or, after further advanced treatment, as boiler make-up water.
It is worth noting that in this project all 223 sets of main equipment are domestically produced. This detail is of industry landmark significance: in the past, high-end reverse osmosis membranes long relied on imports, while in recent years the salt rejection rate of domestically produced reverse osmosis membranes has stably reached above 99.8%, and ultrapure water reverse osmosis membranes have begun to break the international monopoly of membrane materials in the semiconductor field. Equipment localization directly lowers the investment and O&M costs of dual-membrane industrial reclaimed water projects, and is the prerequisite for such projects to move from "demonstration" to "routine configuration."
V. Observing Trends from Individual Cases: Reclaimed Water Is Evolving Toward "Point-to-Point Industrial Direct Supply"
Looking at the project structure over the past year, the utilization path of reclaimed water is undergoing obvious changes — from the early stage of "mainly ecological water supplementation, supplemented by municipal miscellaneous use" to high-quality point-to-point supply for large industrial users. Multiple similar samples have emerged in China: the Ningdong Base in Ningxia, as a relatively large-scale industrial wastewater zero liquid discharge project in China, reuses more than 4000万 cubic meters of mine water and reclaimed water annually, replacing more than 2200万 cubic meters of Yellow River water intake; the Mengsu Economic Development Zone in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, specifically treats photovoltaic wastewater, with a reclaimed water reuse rate stable at above 95% and a daily treatment capacity of 10万 cubic meters, serving multiple new energy enterprises.
This trend imposes three new requirements on the industry: First, water quality must be "customized on demand" — industrial users have different requirements for indicators such as chloride ions, hardness, and silicon, and reclaimed water plants need to shift from a "compliance discharge mindset" to a "product water mindset"; Second, transmission and distribution distance determines economic viability — the 6.7 km pipeline accounts for a considerable proportion of investment, and future reclaimed water allocation planning needs to be prepared in sync with industrial layout; Third, operational stability is the core competitive point — industrial enterprises cannot accept supply interruptions, and membrane system fouling control, cleaning strategies, and emergency backup water source arrangements will directly determine whether reclaimed water can truly replace conventional water sources.
TIANYI TECH (TIANYI LIMITED) has long been deeply engaged in the fields of wastewater treatment and reclaimed water reuse. Centering on three major directions — low-carbon processes, resource recovery, and smart operations — it provides full-chain services from solution design, equipment manufacturing, and engineering construction to operation management for municipal wastewater treatment plants, industrial parks, and various water-using entities. With the goals of "stable compliance, energy saving and consumption reduction, and resource circulation," the company continues to help customers reduce operating costs and enhance system resilience in the green and low-carbon transition.
Sources: Yantai Public Resources Trading Network bid result announcement (2026年10月13日), reports reposted by BJX Environmental Protection Network and Environmental Protection Online (2026年10月14日), the "Shandong Province Action Plan for Comprehensively Building a Water Conservation Institutional and Policy System (2026–2030年)", and publicly available information from the Ministry of Water Resources and Agricultural Bank of China document Ban Jie Yue [2026] No. 148.
