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ACCIONA To Ramp Largest Desalination Plant, Achieves Milestone | |
| Sumita Pawar |
A report said ACCIONA has achieved a key milestone in the construction of the Al Khobar 2 desalination plant, ramping up production during final testing to reach its full capacity of 630,000 m3 of potable water per day.
which is enough to meet the needs of 3 million people.
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According to the report, the new desalination plant in the east of Saudi Arabia, which is already supplying the water network for Khobar, is one of the largest to be built in the Kingdom and the largest reverse osmosis desalination plant built by ACCIONA worldwide.
The plant uses energy-efficient Sea Water Reverse Osmosis (SWRO) technology and is a key part of modernising the water sector in Saudi Arabia.
The facility will be equipped with reverse osmosis technology, and its daily capacity of more than 630,000 m3 makes it one of the biggest in the country and the largest RO plant under the EPC scheme awarded in a single shot in KSA.
Javier Nieto, KSA Country Director for the Water Business, said, "This milestone is the result of good teamwork between the client, our engineers, and the construction teams." Now that we are entering the final testing and commissioning stages, we will undertake several tests to make sure everything works perfectly.
He adds, "We are proud to have reached this milestone at Al Khobar 2. "It proves ACCIONA’s commitment to delivering good work to our clients on time and of our ability to meet the goals of our clients and of local
The Saudi government-owned company Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) gave the job of building the Al Khobar 2 desalination plant to ACCIONA and its partner RTCC in 2020.
In a region with acute water scarcity, demand for desalinated water is being driven by climate change and population growth. Saudi Arabia, which has a population of 35 million, is the world’s third-largest per capita consumer of water after the United States and Canada, according to the report.
The Kingdom has set a national programme for rationalising water consumption, setting ambitious targets that include slashing usage by nearly 43 percent by 2030. The targets form part of Saudi Arabia’s comprehensive Vision 2030 social and economic development plan.
ACCIONA is a major player in desalination using reverse osmosis technology, which emits 6.5 times fewer greenhouse gases than thermal desalination, according to the report.
The company has five very large desalination plants and three large sewage treatment plants under construction in Saudi Arabia. All the desalination plants use seawater reverse osmosis technology.
They include Al Khobar I and II, with production capacities of 200 and 630 million litres per day, respectively; Shuqaiq 3 and 4, with 450 and 400 million litres per day; and Jubail 3B, with a capacity of 570 million litres per day, concludes the report.