ABS pumps in first domestic desalination plant in the UK

The UK’s largest water and wastewater services company, Thames Water Utilities Ltd., has relied on ABS Pump for the supply of the different pumping equipment necessary for the desalination plant that is currently under construction in Beckton, Newham, East London, which will be the first large-scale plant of this kind in the UK.

This remarkable and complex project was achieved by the Spanish engineering company Acciona Agua after several years of study and preparation. The new plant, with a daily capacity of 150,000 m3, will treat brackish water – a mix of fresh water from the river and seawater – from the Thames estuary using a process called “reverse osmosis” to turn it into clean, fresh drinking water.

Water will be taken from the tidal stretch of the Thames during the last three hours on the ebb tide, when the water is flowing out of London and the salt content is at its lowest. It is for this reason that the ABS intake pumps guarantee the supply of the daily water volume needed by lifting up the water from the river in two periods of 3 hours each.

This capacity will make possible to treat the water needed to guarantee a back up supply of drinking water in times of drought or extended periods of low rainfall. The treated water will be pumped through a new pipeline to a reservoir in North East London and will meet the daily needs of up to one million people in the London metropolitan area.