New desalination plant to boost Jeddah’s water capacity

Makkah Governor Prince Khalid Al Faisal will launch Sunday night a new desalination station designed to carry 240,000 cubic meters of water daily in Jeddah.
The Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) constructed the station and the National Water Company built the 10-lilometer pipeline.
The station uses reverse osmosis and will boost the desalinated water capacity that reaches Jeddah from Shuaybah Station 3.
Abd Ar-Rahman Al-Ibrahim, governor of SWCC, said that after the operation of the station that Jeddah will witness a jump in the water pumped.
“The new station does not work on fuel and it is environment friendly,” Al-Ibrahim said. “It is highly productive and highly reliable. It consumes less energy and uses smart networks and designs. Once operational, this station will raise the capacity of water desalination at SWCC to 1.3 million cubic meters daily.”
He said, “The station has been ready to pump some time ago, but we had to coordinate with various parties and sectors during the period, which Shuaybah Station 3 was under maintenance. We did not want the people of Jeddah to suffer any shortages.”
Meanwhile, Muhammad Ath Thibaiti, director general of SWCC western coast branch, who is in charge of the project, said that SWCC started work on the new station once the second Jeddah station was decommissioned.
“The capacity of the old station was 40,000 cubic meters only,” Thibaiti said. “The new station is state of the art and does not use fuel. It has no chimneys, works by reverse osmosis and is environment-friendly.”
He added: “Now there will be no more smoke. The two chimneys that remain will be treated so that they do not release any hazardous gases. But more than 95 percent of the white ‘smoke’ seen is actually water vapor. The station takes seawater from the Red Sea and sends it to a treating area using membranes. After that water is sent to the SWCC tanks in Al-Faisalayyah.”