AAP Newswire
Tuesday 19/6/2007
Victoria may soon boast Australia's largest desalination plant, but Perth is already drawing from the nation's first. Perth residents began drinking water from the Indian Ocean late last year via a $387 million seawater desalination facility at Kwinana, south of the city.
The plant was built to supply 17 per cent of the city's water at full capacity and the Western Australian government has since announced plans for a second desalination facility. The existing plant was built as part of a joint venture between Multiplex Group and French-based water treatment specialist, Degremont. It was the largest of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere and the third largest of its kind in the world at the time it started operating. It is powered by electricity generated by the Emu Downs Wind Farm near Cervantes on the western WA coast.
The Perth plant is expected to produce 45 gigalitres of water per year or 130 million litres per day, making it the largest single water source feeding into Perth's Integrated Water Supply. The Victorian plant will be built in the Wonthaggi region, south-east of Melbourne, at a cost of $3.1 billion, Premier Steve Bracks announced today. It is expected to provide 150 billion litres of water per year for Melbourne, Geelong, Westernport and Wonthaggi.
The NSW government is planning to build a desalination plant at Kurnell in Sydney's The Queensland government also plans to build a desalination plant, along with two new dams, and introduce recycled drinking water.
The second plant planned for Perth will cost almost $1 billion and will be powered by renewable At Binningup, 130km south of Perth, the plant will provide at least 45 gigalitres of water a Wheatbelt and the Goldfields when it comes on line by 201 1. More than 30 per cent of Perth's water will then come from desalination, cutting dependence on dams and the strained Gnangara mound, Perth's main water source.
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