The Sagunt desalination plant could become in a few months the temporary solution to alleviate the thirst suffered by Barcelona and Catalonia. The plant has a production capacity of 22,900 m3/day (equivalent to 8 hm3 annually), divided into three production lines, although it is currently only at 10% of its capacity. And since October 2020, it has been supplying about 20 m3/year to the Oxígeno company, located in the same town.
But the demand for desalinated water is going to grow, a lot, in the coming years; mainly due to the launch of the PowerCo gigafactory (Volkswagen group), a company that will employ 3,000 people and will produce 150 million battery cells per year. The factory is expected to enter service in January 2026, with water demand that will account for 60% of the desalination plant's production capacity, although the volume supplied would already increase last year.
Strengthening the production capacity of the Sagunt desalination plant to bring water to Catalonia will have a positive effect for the gigafactory. Because, according to sources from Acuamed, the state company that manages the plant, it will accelerate improvements for the distribution of desalinated water and, in addition, it will be the State that will directly pay for the optimization for greater production.
On January 11, 2007, the “Regulatory Agreement for the financing and exploitation of the works of the Sagunt desalination plant between the state company Acuamed and the Sagunto City Council” was signed for the volume corresponding to the entire production capacity of the plant (8 hm3/year), and in September 2020 a provisional agreement with the industrial company Oxígeno de Sagunto, S.L. with a duration of five years for a volume of 210,000 m3/year, with surpluses.
Sources from the Sagunt City Council indicate that the activity that will be required to produce water for Catalonia will be financed by the State, which will indirectly mean cost savings for the corporation and will benefit the battery plant.
Last Monday, Mariola Durá, exploitation director of the Sagunt desalination plant, told this newspaper that "if there were a water emergency in Sagunt, demand could be changed, and not only there, since we have a pipeline that reaches the water treatment plant. of Sagunt and that would supply the entire Camp de Morvedre".
