Spanish government authorizes land for Moncofa desalination

Reservation of 86,570 m² of public land on Spain's Mediterranean coast for the Moncofa desalination plant was authorized on 28 May 2011 by the Spanish cabinet. The project is being constructed by the government agency Acuamed. 

For an investment of € 55.3 million, the reverse-osmosis desalination plant will produced 10.5 million m³/year of potable water. The project has the agreement of the Ministry of Environment, Water & Urban Housing, Moncofa City Council and the Community of Valencia. 

The water will serve about 120,000 people in the region around Castellón de la Plana, north of Valencia. 

The plant will have 3 trains of RO membranes, each with its own high-pressure pump, booster pump, second-stage pump and energy recovery unit. Pretreatment will be two stages of filtration using sand and sand-anthracite plus 5µm cartridge filtration. Chemical pretreatment will also be carried out. 

Brine disposal at sea will be combined with flows from the plants at Vall d'Uixó and Nules.