Ashkelon desalination plant begins pumping potable water by Daniel Kennemer The Jerusalem Post August 5, 2005 A new $250 million desalination plant in Ashkelon began pumping potable water filtered from the Mediterranean Sea Thursday morning, said Gustavo Kronenberg, the director-general of VID Desalination Company Ltd. "This is a true revolution in [Israel's] water network. We will soon enter a situation in which there will be no more shortage of drinking water," Kronenberg said. He added that the Ashkelon facility will provide 100 million cubic meters yearly - roughly 15 percent of the total household water consumed in Israel - by the end of the year, and could expand production to 120m. cu.m. per year. The water will be introduced into the national water reservoir, improving the purity and quality of Israel's tap water. VID is a consortium bringing together IDE Technologies LTD (50%), Paris, France-based Veolia Water S.A. (25%), and Elran Infrastructures (25%). IDE is held jointly by Israel Chemicals Ltd. (itself part of the Ofer brothers' Israel Corporation) and the Delek Group, while Elran is owned by the Dankner Group, the First International Bank of Israel, and Dor-Gas. IDE, based in Kadima, near Netanya, has built 350 desalination facilities in 40 countries, including 65 in Spain alone. According to VID's agreement with the state, the project will run as a build-operate-transfer (BOT) deal, by which VID will operate the facility for 25 years (including the construction period) before being becoming government property. The initial price of the water provided to Mekorot, the government water company, stands at roughly NIS 2.60 (52.7 US cents according to the tender submitted) per cubic meter - or just over one-quarter of an agora per liter of high quality, low sodium water. More recent tenders for similar projects both in Israel and abroad have put the price of water at around $0.80 to $1, due to the latest rises in the price of both raw materials and energy inputs and rising interest rates, noted IDE director general and VID chairman Avshalom Felder. The desalination complex covers 70,000 square meters, and counts 20 initial filtration pools (in which sea-borne solids are removed from the water), and 40,000 polymer membranes, which the water is pushed through to remove the salts and impurities in a process known as negative osmosis. The salts and impurities are then returned to the sea. Calcium is added to the water to maintain its hardness. As the complex requires 50 megawatts of electricity, an independent power plant was built especially to supply the necessary energy. The power plant was built with the assumption that it would be fueled by natural gas coming from Egypt; until the gas arrives, the power plant's operator is supplying the desalination facility energy at a loss. Ashkelon's desalination plant is the largest and most advanced negative osmosis facility in the world, VID said. Negative osmosis is the preferred method of desalination in Southern Europe, South America and Israel due to the low energy input required and resulting affordability, while oil-rich Persian Gulf states continue to use evaporation-based technologies. The low cost of negative osmosis is also attracting less water-desperate countries to the benefits of desalination, including China, Australia, and the United States, Kronenberg said, noting that with this project Israel is strengthening its position as a world leader in the field. By 2010, five new desalination plants - including Ashkelon - will be producing 300 million cubic meters of high-quality water yearly, Kronenberg said, noting that the only other planned facility of similar size - also set to produce 100 million cubic meters yearly - is being built near Hadera, and will begin operations in 2008. The other three facilities will produce between 30m. to 45m. cu. m. annually each. A smaller reverse osmosis facility built by IDE in Eilat has been providing Mekorot with around 3.5m. cu. m. of drinking water for the past eight years.