“Águas do Algarve informs that the public tender for the design, construction and operation of the Desalination System in the Algarve Region, with the Complementary Group of Companies – ACE”, reads a statement from the public company.

According to a source from Águas do Algarve, the company responsible for the region's water supply and responsible for managing infrastructure such as dams and wastewater treatment plants (WWTP), the project is expected to be completed by the end of 2026 or the beginning of 2027.

The so-called Complementary Group of Companies (ACE) is made up of the Portuguese companies Luságua – Serviços Ambientais, Aquapor – Serviços and the Spanish company GS Inima Environment.

The contract represents an investment of around 108 million euros, which is part of the Algarve Regional Water Efficiency Plan, which is part of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP), according to the note.

The agreement foresees that this consortium will fulfil the defined objectives, namely “the design, construction and operation of the desalination system in the Algarve region”, which will be installed in Albufeira, in the district of Faro.

The consortium will also be responsible for “operating the project for a period of three years” after the work is completed.

Águas do Algarve states that the construction of the desalination plant comes in a context in which it is expected, “with increasing evidence, that there will be a decrease in annual rainfall and an increase in the asymmetry of the intra-annual precipitation regime, more or less pronounced depending on the climate scenarios considered, especially pronounced in the Mediterranean regions”.

According to the statement, the sole objective of the project is based on the need for an integrated solution that guarantees, in a sustainable manner, the public water supply in the Algarve region, a need that has been identified for a long time.

According to Águas do Algarve, the main reason for implementing this project is the need to create an alternative capable of guaranteeing the resilience of the public supply to the population of the region, even in periods of prolonged drought.

The construction of a desalination plant in the municipality of Albufeira is one of the measures in response to the drought affecting the southern region of Portugal.

The infrastructure will have an initial capacity of 16 million cubic metres (m3), but the company is designing it to be able to treat up to three times more than that volume, i.e. up to 24 million m3 of water.

Over the last few years, the Algarve region has suffered from cycles of prolonged drought associated with a situation of water scarcity that is now considered structural, resulting in a reduction in the volumes of water stored in the various available sources.

A platform that brings together environmental associations initiated legal proceedings with the Public Prosecutor's Office last July, requesting the invalidation of the Environmental Impact Declaration in favour of the construction of a desalination plant in the Algarve.