ACCIONA completes construction of SWCC’s 210,000m3/day Al Khobar 1 KSA desalination plant – MEP MiddleEast

ACCIONA completes construction of SWCC’s 210,000m3/day Al Khobar 1 KSA desalination plant – MEP MiddleEast

Construction of the Al Khobar 1 desalination plant in Saudi Arabia – built by sustainable infrastructure solutions provider ACCIONA and owned by KSA's Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) – has completed, with water being produced beyond its nominal capacity since 26 December 2020.

The plant, which will produce 210,000m3 of drinking water per day, will supply a population equivalent of 350,000. It is one of the biggest desalination plants in Saudi Arabia in terms of capacity.

The highly energy-efficient seawater desalination reverse osmosis (SWRO) plant is a key project in line with the SWCC's aim to modernise the water sector in Saudi Arabia.

Commenting on the project, the project director of ACCIONA, Ignacio Lobo Gutiérrez, said: “We are very proud to have completed this project to schedule and to contribute to supplying drinking water in the country in a sustainable and innovative way. This milestone is the result of good teamwork between the client, technical assistance, and the project team”.

ACCIONA completed the testing programme and the commissioning of the plant remotely, using digital-twin technology.

Thanks to the digital twin – which is an exact digital copy of the Al-Khobar 1 seawater reverse osmosis plant (SWRO) – a team of specialists in Madrid