Τhe Water Development Department (WDD)is expected to proceed, towards the end of the year, with the preparation of a Project Concept Note to promote the construction of a new desalination plant on the eastern side of Limassol district, as reported to "Entrepreneurial Limassol" by the new Director of the Department (as of 1/10/2023), Eliana Tofa. The Project Note precedes the conduct of studies for the project and will determine the type of contract, based on which construction and management will proceed.
However, as Mrs. Tofa told us, the most likely method for the construction of the plant is that of BOT (Build-Operate-Transfer), which was also followed in the case of the Episkopi desalination unit. At the same time, the Water Development Department is seriously considering the possibility of increasing the quantities of water produced by the existing desalination plant in Episkopi.
The construction of a new desalination plant in the Limassol district is being promoted, on the one hand due to the rapid residential development throughout much of the district and, on the other, due to the fact that in recent years no satisfactory water inflows have been recorded in dams that serve water supply needs. As Eliana Tofa (who until recently was the District Engineer of the WDD in our city) told us, demand for water in the Limassol district has been significantly increased in recent years, compared to the quantity produced by the existing desalination plant in Episkopi.
She also pointed out that the Department has to purify large quantities of water from the Kouris dam in order to supplement the quantities of drinking demand and that a new source of water security should be found for water supply purposes. The Director of the Water Board of Limassol (WBL), Socrates Metaxas, told us that the total water consumption in the areas managed by the Council amounted to 14 million cubic meters in the year 2022. And that, in the last decade, there has been an annual increase of 2.5 to 3% in the WBL areas.
Mr. Metaxas described these increases as significant, which he attributed to stepped up economic activity In Limassol and to the increase in population. The increase in water consumption in the communities east and west of Limassol, including the Municipality of Ypsonas, which are not controlled by the WBL and show the largest residential development in recent years, is even greater.
