City of Cape Town executive mayor, Patricia de Lille recently visited the site of one of the city’s latest modular land-based desalination plants being built to combat the current water crisis.

The temporary desalination plant is being constructed on land made available to the city by the V&A Waterfront at no extra cost.

The development will be located at East Pier Road in the V&A Waterfront where an open-air parking lot opposite the heliports will be converted into a desalination plant that will produce 2 million litres of water every day.

According to the mayor the gesture by the V&A Waterfront is a good example of how business and government can work together to ensure the city’s water resilience.

The mayor adds that the location of the site makes it easy for the City to provide services to the desalination plant. “The City will provide electricity in November 2017 and construction will start soon after,” the mayor says.

“Water will be abstracted from the ocean on the harbour side of the pier, treated at the desalination plant and treated clean water will be pumped into the city’s water network near the site,” De Lille explains.

Other plants in the pipeline

The desalination plant is in addition to the eight other modular land-based desalination plants the City is implementing.

These are for the following sites:

• Hout Bay – to produce 4 million litres per day
• Granger Bay – to produce 8 million litres of water per day
• Red Hill/Dido Valley – to produce 2 million litres of water per day
• Strandfontein – to produce 7 million litres per day
• Monwabisi – to produce 7 million litres per day
• Harmony Park – to produce 8 million litres per day
• Cape Town Harbour – to produce 50 million litres per day
• The universal sites – to produce 20 million litres per day