In Tenerife it has not rained with reason, and without reason, since last October. Manuel Marrero, president of the Cumbres de Abona cooperative, told us that the southern land is so generous that with these rains they have been able to get ahead, although he acknowledges that the effects of the drought will be drastic, especially due to the increase in the cost of agricultural and livestock products, of those that occur here as those that mostly come from abroad.
Although it rains much less in our Archipelago than in the rest of Spain, the Canary Islands, thanks to being innovative in desalination, have been able to maintain an unalterable drinking water service, improving its quality every year and at an affordable cost. This, together with the regeneration of sewage, as the public company Balten, of the Cabildo de Tenerife, did 30 years ago with the transfer of sewage from Santa Cruz to the south, has served to maintain large farms in the most arid area. of the Island. A way to put a stop to the drought that overwhelms us.
The Canary Islands currently have some 330 desalination plants in operation, which are basically concentrated in Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, Fuerteventura and, to a lesser extent, in Tenerife, with the first two planned for La Gomera. Among them, 291 use reverse osmosis technology, 28 are electrodialysis systems plants and 7 distillation plants, in addition to several with other technologies.
The Councilor for Sustainable Development and the Fight against Climate Change of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Javier Rodríguez Medina, recalls, however, that today 80% of the water consumed in Tenerife comes from the existing aquifers, from the more than 1,600 galleries and of about 400 wells, the so-called continental waters. The recently approved Hydrological Plan for Tenerife 2021-2027 plans to increase this dependency from 80% to groundwater to 65%, thanks to “reclaimed water and the desalination plants”, explains Rodríguez Medina, which “will allow us to alleviate the aquifers and what for me it has become almost an obsession, favoring reclaimed water, achieved with a purification system that now goes beyond pre-treatment with filtering and sieving, incorporating a tertiary treatment, called reversible electrodialysis (EDR), which converts treated water into reclaimed water, which concludes with the water cycle, transforming residual water into new water resources, which can be used for the primary sector”, as will happen in the large regional treatment plant of Valle de Güímar, already finished, waiting for the water to arrive from the connections of the municipal networks of Candelaria, Arafo and Güímar that are still to be executed.
Contrary to what happens at the island level, in the municipality of Adeje, for example, 80% of the drinking water consumed by its population is desalinated water, thanks to the municipally owned La Caleta facility managed by the company Aqualia, as He is also currently doing the two twins of Granadilla and Fonsalía, carried out by the Insular Water Council. Each one of them produces 14,000 cubic meters a day, and it is expected that they will soon be expanded to a capacity of 21,000 a day.
In this sense, the population increase has been taken into account -the island grows by an average of 10,000 inhabitants each year-, which makes it necessary to desalinate water for human consumption and purification for the sanitation of cities and our coasts.
POWERFUL INVESTMENT
In the midst of the debate about the drought in Spain, of which the Canary Islands are no stranger, it must be remembered that a year ago El País headlined “Drought forces Spain to invest more than 300 million in desalination plants.” “Tourism and the climate emergency lead the central Executive and the Mediterranean communities to invest millions of dollars to supply themselves. Catalonia plans to double production in five years”, the same information pointed out, which pointed to the firm commitment to desalination to combat droughts that are presumed to be more persevering with climate change.
Today, almost a year later, Spain experienced the warmest month of April in the last 70 years, with the aggravating circumstance that this entails for the rise in food prices, both meat and vegetables.
Aqualia Wade
For the recently named best world water company, combating drought can be achieved with efficient management, based on the modernization of existing infrastructures and the digitization of the network itself. Desalination, so present in the Canary Islands, can also help a lot to clean up the groundwater level of the aquifers, but to know how to solve the historical supply problems of the galleries with the highest flow in Tenerife, innovation is needed, hence the importance of having with an R+D+I department.
With this purpose, Aqualia Wave was born, an international research center to be built in Adeje, promoted by Aqualia, the company specialized in the management of the integral water cycle. Aqualia Wave will occupy more than 3,000 square meters next to the modern La Caleta desalination plant.
The Aqualia Wave project is part of the company’s sustainability policy, which is committed to desalination, innovation and digitization as strategic axes to improve the well-being of people and the environment. Aqualia manages drinking and waste water in various municipalities in the Canary Islands, including Adeje, where it has a desalination plant, an accredited laboratory and a headquarters where customer service is provided, controlling more than 20,000 meters digitally.
Aqualia Wave is expected to be fully operational by the end of this year, becoming a European benchmark in research and innovation in the field of water.
