WATER & WASTE TREATMENT
WHY ‘FEED’ ANALYSIS IS IMPORTANT FROM THE START
Chris Payne, Co-founder & Director, PureTec Separations, says Front-End Engineered Design (FEED) analysis should come before every water treatment investment
M
ost water treatment capital decisions are made without a proper Front-End Engineered Design (FEED) analysis. Sites specify systems based on what they think
the water process looks like, often repeating past installations without asking whether current and future needs have changed. Every new installation in water processing should
be treated as a chance to align with where the site is heading. That means looking at modern process and reuse technologies, with water security and sustainability designed in from the start. It also means designing for lower overall water use and lower energy costs. Unfortunately, many sites skip this step. They buy what they bought last time and assume it still fits. The result is the system ends up under-specified and unable to handle what’s actually in the water. That means waste and maintenance costs rise, and energy bills keep climbing. From April 2025, twelve of the sixteen wholesalers in England and Wales raised charges by more than 20%. The steepest rise was over 50%. So the cost of specifying the wrong system has risen sharply alongside it. There’s also the missed opportunity. Every new
project is a chance to build in water reuse and cut the site’s carbon footprint from the outset. Without a FEED analysis, those options get designed out before anyone realises they were on the table.
What a proper FEED analysis involves The most important stage is site-wide discussion. Establishing what the site needs now and what it will need in five or ten years. Understanding the client’s working processes, budgetary stages, and long-term plans. When you get this stage right, it builds trust
and the conversations that follow are open and frank. That’s where the real value sits. For a water treatment plant or industrial
process system, a FEED analysis identifies issues that would otherwise surface mid-project or after commissioning: feed water quality, pump duties, membrane sizing, chemical requirements, waste streams, electrical load, control philosophy, and site interfaces. All of this happens before committing to detailed design and procurement.
How it changes the treatment design The first thing a FEED analysis looks at is the water source itself. You can specify the best treatment system in the world, but if the water source isn’t viable long-term, the investment doesn’t hold up. Companies are only now starting to take this seriously and de-risk their water supply.
Whether the source is river, aquifer, mains, lagoons, or a mix, the analysis establishes long-term availability, licensing position, and the right blend of sources to manage cost and risk across water, waste, energy, and sustainability. Alongside detailed design, programme development, timelines and budgets, a modern FEED analysis should consider site water risk and how current technologies can be matched to site needs. That data leads to different decisions. One major power producer chose to rent containerised treatment equipment to bridge a gap while the site established its long-term production position. Without the analysis, they’d have committed capital before the requirements were clear.
A clear view of water source risk Another large water consumer replaced ageing concrete infrastructure with membrane systems for incoming site water, then installed point-of-use filtration downstream, treating to the required standard by application. CIP, boiler feed, fire defence, each gets what it needs and nothing more. Costs came down and effluent dropped. More importantly, the site finally had a clear view of its own water source risk.
A FEED analysis positions the supplier as an adviser
rather than a vendor. Understanding site needs and deepening that relationship has real value, particularly when it reduces the cost of surprises once project companies and EPCs are brought in without full site knowledge.
The value is in working with the client to establish what they actually need. That builds trust and leads to systems that perform as expected from day one.
PureTec Separations
www.puretecseparations.com
32 PROCESS & CONTROL ENGINEERING | SEPTEMBER 2026
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