A methodology to target the minimum energy requirement in water allocation networks where impurity concentrations do not play any significant role is proposed in this paper. The proposed methodology is mathematically rigorous and targets the minimum utility requirement satisfying the minimum approach temperature prior to the detailed design of both the water allocation network as well as the heat exchanger network. The proposed algorithm is presented through a tableau-based calculation procedure. A water allocation network design algorithm is proposed that guarantees the minimum energy targets obtained through the proposed energy recovery algorithm. The proposed methodology is also applied to inter-process heat integration between various water allocation networks. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.