Major works are ramping up on construction of the Eyre Peninsula’s new desalination plant, with leading global construction company ACCIONA signed on as the project’s major construction partner.

The project will construct a reverse osmosis desalination plant at Billy Lights Point and provide a climate-independent source of sustainable drinking water for the region’s 35,000 SA Water customers.

SA Water has been working with ACCIONA to refine the project’s design to determine the final cost of delivering the plant as quickly as possible, while incorporating critical stakeholder feedback to minimise environmental impacts.

Combined with continued global inflationary pressures, these important changes have resulted in a revised project cost of approximately $470 million, with first water expected to be delivered from the plant by the end of 2026.

Last year, the State Government approved plans to deliver a sustainable long term water source for the region.

ACCIONA will construct the 5.3 gigalitre-per-year capacity plant with marine construction specialists McConnell Dowell also partnering with SA Water to deliver the project’s associated marine infrastructure.  

Both ACCIONA and McConnell Dowell were part of the construction consortium that delivered the 100 gigalitre-capacity Adelaide Desalination Plant in 2011. 

South Australian-based construction company Leed will be responsible for designing and constructing the transfer pipeline which will deliver safe, clean drinking water from the new plant to the existing water distribution network. 

The final design includes constructing the plant’s marine pipeline infrastructure by tunnelling beneath the shoreline and inter-tidal areas to provide additional protection to the coastline and marine environments and locating the intake and outfall pipes – used to draw and return seawater to the plant – in deeper waters.

This cost adjustment will not impact SA Water’s customers’ bills, with the additional expenditure to be managed through a re-prioritisation of the utility’s broader existing state-wide capital works program.

Importantly, the Eyre Peninsula’s recently announced 2025-26 groundwater allocation for the Southern Basins, which is responsible for 75 per cent of the region’s drinking water, is sufficient to meet current demand.

This reaffirms that water restrictions on SA Water customers are not required, with residents encouraged to continue to use water efficiently around their property.

Debate surrounding the Eyre Peninsula’s desalination facility and its proposed site has remained a focal point of community discussion since it was initially promoted as a long-term solution for the region’s water supply in 2008.

In 2021, then Liberal Water Minister David Speirs introduced the Billy Lights Point option as a potential solution. The plan was later put on hold and a committee was formed to investigate alternative locations, with no financing allocated, leaving residents at risk of facing a drinking water shortage.

Updated estimates show the committee’s preferred site, Sleaford West, would be projected to cost $920 million – almost double the cost of the Billy Lights Point project. The cost increase would have been borne by SA Water customers throughout South Australia.

On top of the increased cost, the Sleaford West proposal was fraught with challenges, including difficult construction conditions, geological complications and distance from the existing electricity network.