Readers who were wondering what progress was being made to put in place the power supply to the new desalination plant on the outskirts of Torrevieja need wonder no longer because, according to reports in regional Spanish newspaper Información last week, tenders are being issued for the construction of a power plant which will be located in the grounds of the desalination plant itself. The cost of the power facilities will be 11.8 million euros. The capital cost of the desalination project itself is 215 million euros and when the plant is completed and operational it will produce 80 hectometres of water per year increasing eventually to 120 hectares.
The initial quantity is said to be enough to supply two million people and agricultural demands with half going to each.
The project has been dogged by delays. Initially there were objections to the planning consent on environmental grounds which had to be resolved in the courts with the decision going in the end to the national government for the continuance of the project. Then there were lengthy negotiations with the Town Hall of Torrevieja before consent was given to a route for the inlet and exhaust pipes to follow and a compensation package agreed. More recently it was announced that work on the pipe connections at the harbour end would not be completed before the summer and hence would have to stop over the high tourist period as no construction is allowed over those three months. Other aspects of the hugely complex civil engineering project have been progressing satisfactorily, such as the pipework leading the desalinated water away from the plant to the Pedrera reservoir and other receivers which is almost completed. The question, though, of where the power to run the massive plant would come from has remained unanswered until now with many perplexed as to why adequate provision had not been made at an earlier stage of the project.
Apparently no one is venturing to suggest when the plant will be finally finished and up and running, the original completion date was the start of 2008. Información itself is sticking with early 2011, a date which it forecast earlier this year.