Interserve consortium to build London desalination plant

A consortium of England's Interserve (LON: IRV) and Atkins Water and Spain's Acciona received a contract to build a £200 million desalination plant in London for utility Thames Water.

The controversial Thames Gateway Water Treatment Plant was blocked by former London Mayor Ken Livingstone, but came back on track following the election of Boris Johnson.

Livingstone and other opponents, including the Green Party and the WWF, have said the plant will be a pollutant and only serve as a short term solution to water shortages in the area.

The plant will be built in Beckton, in east London, expected to be complete by late 2009.

"Interserve has a long and successful association with Thames Water and we are very aware of the key strategic part this plant will play in providing its customers with a long-term, high-quality water supply," said Adrian Ringrose, chief executive of Interserve.

The plant will be located on the north bank of the Thames and will be the first in London to extract brackish water from the tidal Thames, with a capacity to supply up to 140 million liters of water a day — enough for 400,000 homes.

Using reverse osmosis desalination technology, the plant will deliver fresh water to one of Thames Water's existing reservoirs in northeast London.

Interserve said that because desalination is a more energy-intensive process than conventional water treatment, Thames Water has committed to running the plant only when essential and to providing 100 percent of the power needed to run it from renewable energy.