The Agua division in Italy of the Spanish Acciona group – specialized in the integrated water cycle sector and among the world leaders in the desalination sector, present in our country since 2000 – will design and build the Cefalù water purification plant wanted by Amap, the municipal company of Palermo. The contract was signed last Thursday and the group – following the positive opinions of the services conference – plans to start work in May, to complete it by November 2025.
The plant will thus be able to desalinate the waters of the Presidiana spring and make them drinkable for a population of over 300 thousand people, with a treatment capacity of 500 to 600 liters per second, equal to 50 thousand cubic meters per day. A fundamental work to integrate and lighten the Palermo water system, burdened not only by network inefficiencies, but also by the increasingly frequent and intense drought phenomena due to climate change.
The project as a whole will cost around 40 million euros, 75% financed by the Pnrr and the remaining 25% by Amap itself. It is a plant comparable – in terms of the type of technology adopted, i.e. reverse osmosis, and in terms of treatment capacity – to the desalination plant that will be built in Taranto, the tender for which was announced by the Pugliese Aqueduct and won by a consortium led by Cisa spa with Suez Italy, Suez international, Edil Alta and Ecologica, which will have a capacity of over 600 liters per second.
We talk regarding a “purifier” and not a desalinator because the water treated in this case comes from a spring and not from the sea, but the process is the same, explain from Acciona Agua, which has built over 90 reverse osmosis systems throughout the world. world and also some of the few (regarding 28, not all operational) present in our country.
Integrated water solutions
«Unfortunately in Italy we still continue to consider watermakers as an emergency tool serving the smaller islands, which need to be supplied by desalinated sea water – observes Luigi Patimo, corporate country manager Italy of Acciona -. We have not yet thought of including these works as complementary tools within the overall water system, and not as primary elements”. In fact, these plants – very widespread in geographical areas such as the Middle East, Australia or the United States and, in Europe, in Spain – are struggling to take off in our country, despite last year the Drought decree introducing some rules to simplify the authorization processes and are indicated by many as a possible alternative solution in water supply systems, in a scenario in which drought phenomena are destined to increase.
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2024-03-30 01:25:34
