The new compact HP SCA Double series of desalinators presented at Metstrade 2024

After the success achieved during its debut at the Cannes Yachting Festival 2024, the new HP SCA DOUBLE desalination series is astonishing enthusiasts at METSTRADE 2024.

“A great technical innovation, the new HP SCA DOUBLE series, which greatly reduces the size of the desalination units in the engine room.” says Gianni Zucco, co-founder of HP Watermakers.

HP SCA DOUBLE, an innovative series that is even more compact without sacrificing efficiency

HP Watermakers thanks to their complete automation guaranteed by the RP Tronic system, offer a considerable advantage over manual desalinators, eliminating the need for continuous pressure adjustments in the engine room to adapt to fluctuations in salinity and water temperature. But, above all, they perform an effective rinse at the end of the cycle with the valve fully open, thus making it unnecessary to chemically wash the membranes to remove accumulated salt.

“For ‘automatic’ to really mean automatic, a number of careful arrangements are necessary, including in the installation phase: with the new HP SCA DOUBLE series we believe we have provided the answer that shipyards and shipowners were expecting,” explains Gianni Zucco. “Specifically, the innovation consists in the decision to remove the low-pressure pumps, the ones that bring seawater to the desalination unit, from the frame, reducing the footprint of the current SC Double series by 33%. We have moved them close to the seawater inlets, making the desalination plant's seawater supply much more fluid.”

The reason behind this is very simple: to ensure a more continuous inflow, avoiding the (unfortunately frequent) problems of filling the long connection pipes. Air bubbles often form as a result of pipe length and route (which is not always straightforward inside the boat), blocking the desalination plant and forcing the crew or the owner to manually restart the desalinator. It is a very common problem, especially on fast boats, but it also offers designers greater freedom when choosing where to install the seacocks, but specially the main pumping unit.”

Moving the low-pressure pumps also allowed to reduce the width of the HP SCA DOUBLE series box from 1,100 mm to 800 mm, while there are no changes in height and depth (590 and 480 mm). This also made things simpler for designers and shipyards that must always optimise the spaces inside the engine room.

The HP SCA DOUBLE series consists of two independent watermakers, set up in the same frame, and has been designed to optimise on-board energy usage and, at the same time, satisfy peak drinking water demand. A yacht that has only the crew or the owner on board during transfers has a limited need for drinking water, but once the guests are on board, the amount of required drinking water is much, much higher. In the first case, a single desalination plant is sufficient, and the energy consumption is lower, but in the second case both units will be in operation to guarantee the needs of the crew but, above all, of the guests. Furthermore, should a fault unfortunately occur, the second desalination plant will always be working.

The 5 new models of the HP SCA DOUBLE SERIES

The HP SCA DOUBLE series consists of five models with a freshwater output between 240 l/h and 1,200 l/h. The HP SCA DOUBLE 440 is on display at METSTRADE (the others are the 320, 540, 660 and 880 models). The 440 unit is the only one in the range in which the membranes are installed inside the box. In the other models, they are separate, which means shipyards can install them where they deem most appropriate.

On display also the WATER PACKAGE of HP Watermakers. The package includes two systems. The HP KILO desalination unit is connected to the navigation plotters through the Part-NET interface system. As it can produce 100 l/h with only one kW, it is the ideal solution for the medium-sized boats that, until now, could not consider installing a desalination unit. The second device is the HP Genius system, the complete solution to provide fresh water aboard and also at home: the water dispenser is connected directly to the drinking water system and produces food-grade still and/or sparkling drinking water.