Resilience through disasters – The reinstatement and subsequent restart of the Sydney Desalination Plant

Abstract

Large scale seawater desalination was implemented across Australia by supplying all mainland state capital cities as a result of the millennium drought (1997-2009) in order to diversify and increase the resilience of municipal water supplies. In the state of New South Wales (NSW), construction began on the Sydney Desalination Plant (the Plant) in 2007 and following its completion in 2010 it operated for two years through a process proving period. By 2012 the millennium drought had broken, and the Plant entered a care and maintenance mode (termed Water Security Mode, or WSM) from June 2012. The Plant operates under rules set by the NSW Government through its Metropolitan Water Plan which outlines the primary role as a drought response asset, with provision also to provide emergency response. At around the same time, the NSW Government entered in to a 50-year lease of the Plant to a private company, Sydney Desalination Plant Pty Limited (SDP) in June 2012, that was backed by a 50-year water supply contract with Sydney Water Corporation. The Plant has since been operated by SDP. The NSW Government approach to the resilience of water supply to the greater Sydney region has progressed in recent times, with the 2004 Metropolitan Water Plan undertaking a detailed investigation into the feasibility of not just desalination, but also groundwater and recycled water options to improve system resilience, largely in response to the Millennium Drought. This approach was further reinforced by the 2006 Metropolitan Water Plan, which detailed the progress of planning of a desalination plant in Sydney, and its importance in overall system resilience. The Plant is located in Kurnell, NSW, and has a nameplate capacity of 250 million litres/day (MLD) and the provision for expansion of up to 500 MLD with inlet/outlet seawater tunnels, delivery pipeline and land already sized accordingly.