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Acwa Power is setting up the Subsahara’s largest desalination plant: Renewables giant Acwa Power has sealed a SAR 3 bn (c. USD 800 mn) water purchase agreement to set up a desalination plant in Senegal’s Dakar, it said in a disclosure to Tadawul last week. The agreement for the plant was signed with Senegal’s Water and Sanitation Ministry and the Senegalese National Water Company (Sones).
The ins and outs: The 32-year contract sees the private utility funding, developing, operating and providing maintenance for the plant in Grande Côte. It will also design and build associated infrastructure to the project. The plant, which is being developed in two phases, will have a combined production capacity of 400k cubic meters per day using reverse osmosis technology to desalinate seawater.
A timeline: The commercial operation date of the project’s first phase is expected to be during the first quarter of 2028, according to Acwa Power.
We’ve been expecting this: Acwa Power signed a MoU with Sones in 2022 for the SWRO development, which is the first desalination plant of its kind on a public-private partnership basis. It is also the largest desalination project of its kind in Sub-Saharan Africa. The plant’s production facility was set at 300k m3/d at the time.
