£6 million water investment – but customers won’t pay extra

Friday 26 December 2014

Jersey Water have promised that a £6 million project to modernise the desalination plant will not lead to an increase in your water bill.

The company has put in a Planning application to replace and upgrade parts of the plant – which was built in 1999 – which they day will make it more efficient in energy terms, will almost double the amount of fresh water it can produce and will make the plant cheaper to run.

The desalination plant is a standby facility for when water supplies are running extremely low during the summer – the Island only holds enough water to cover 120 days of consumption in the reservoirs, so the plant is a vital standby tool.

Jersey Water’s Managing Director & Engineer, Howard Snowden said: “The project has significant benefits for increased energy efficiency, whilst improving the resilience of Island’s public water supply in times of low rainfall and drought.

“The project is planned to commence in 2015 with completion in the spring of 2016.”

Jersey Water say that the work is being made possible because the technology behind plants like Jersey’s – which run on reverse osmosis – has improved significantly in the last few years.