SAUDI ARABIA – ACCIONA has achieved a key milestone in the development of the Al Khobar 2 desalination plant, ramping up production to a full capacity of 630,000 m3/d during final testing. The new desalination plant in the east of Saudi Arabia is one of the largest in the country and the largest reverse osmosis facility built by ACCIONA worldwide. The Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) awarded ACCIONA and its partner RTCC the construction of the Al Khobar 2 plant in 2020. The plant is already supplying the water network for Khobar and once finished it will serve the water needs of 3 million people. (Mechanical Electrical & Plumbing)
INDIA – Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is reserving a $24.5 million budget provision for a planned desalination project at Manori in Malad. In 2020, then chief minister Uddhav Thackeray had approved the construction of a 200,000 m3/d desalination plant on a 30-acre plot owned by the state government. BMC will construct the plant with a provision for future expansion up to 400,000 m3/d. A detailed project report was completed last November and currently the proposal for a tender is being finalized and the bids for development of the plant will be invited on an international competitive bidding basis. (The Times of India)
SOUTH AFRICA – The Port Alfred desalination plant has been shut down due to a payment dispute between Quality Filtration Systems (QFS) and Ndlambe Municipality. QFS won the tender to build and run a 5,000 m3/d desalination plant in Port Alfred in 2020 and the plant was commissioned on 23 June 2021. The plant served 35,000 residents of Port Alfred and reached the milestone of pumping 100,000 m3 quality potable water into the municipal reticulation system by August.
In September, QFS stopped operations because the municipality had not paid the company. In October, the municipality went to the Makhanda High Court to force QFS to start up its plant again. The court was then asked to decide if QFS stopped working because it wasn’t paid or if the municipality stopped paying because QFS didn’t work. The debate and legal arguments ended in an agreement to terminate the contract and go to arbitration to resolve the contractual disputes. Currently, a process of handling over the plant is being followed so that the municipality takes ownership of the asset and its related software to be able to take over the operations. (Daily Maverick)
U.S.A. – The City of Alice in Texas is planning to build a desalination plant that will produce 11,356 m3 potable water a day from brackish water, taken from groundwater in an aquifer. Seven Seas Water Group was awarded the contract to build the plant and the company will finance and maintain the facility for 15 years, removing salt in brackish water with single stage filtration. The city of Alice is currently waiting for permit approval before commencing construction. The plant is projected to be completed and operational in twelve to fourteen months. (Kiiitv)
The Embalse de La Pedrera reservoir, Spain. Credit: The Leader
SPAIN – To reduce the cost of water produced at the Torrevieja desalination plant, a proposal has been put forward to build a floating solar power plant that would serve the plant’s energy needs. Currently the plant costs around $72 million per year in energy bills, assumed by the state company Aguas de las Cuencas Mediterraneas (Acuamed) of the Ministry for Ecological Transition (Miteco). The shores of the La Pedrera reservoir near Torremendo are being considered for the location of the installation. There is some 1,400 hectares of water surface and surrounding reserve areas in the public domain, more than enough to donate the 120 hectares needed to generate 60 MW per year. (The Leader)
SAUDI ARABIA – The Jeddah Central Development Co. announced it is in the process of transforming the Jeddah desalination plant into a museum that will document the city’s industrial heritage from the time of King Abdulaziz to the present day. The museum will open in 2028 and will include, among other features, studios dedicated to creative visual production and exhibitions representing industry and culture. In 2020, the last two chimneys of the desalination plant were shut down for environmental reasons as the plant had a high operating cost and was a major cause of the spread of polluted fumes in the air since 1990. (Arab News)