Las Palmas de Gran Canaria is a world reference in desalination with an annual production of 23,000,000 cubic meters of drinking water that leaves the desalination plant in perfect condition to be consumed.
Cadena SER commemorates the World Water Week with a visit to the Las Palmas III plant managed by the Emalsa company to learn in detail the technical processes that allow more than half a million people can live without worrying about the water supply in a territory limited by insularity and with little rainfall such as Gran Canaria.
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An engineering achievement that is combined with more than 450 daily analyzes to guarantee the purity of a water considered as lthird best quality in the country and that has the positive evaluation of 80% of its users, a water that is also totally drinkable after passing through this desalination plant, possibly one of the infrastructures that has most influenced the development and growth of the city of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and, moreover, of the island of Gran Canaria since its inauguration by the Kings of Spain in March 1991, thirty years ago now.
The program Hoy por Hoy The Drago led by Evaristo Quintana broadcast this Wednesday live from the desalination plant located in Piedra Santa, at the southern exit of the capital of Gran Canaria, in a special coverage that featured with the participation of the mayor of the city, Augusto Hidalgo, and the one they passed through the CEO of Emalsa, Mercedes Fernández-Couto, Rogerio Koehn, CEO for Spain and Latin America of Gestagua, the director of operations of EMALSA, Antonio Piñeiro, or the deputy director of operations, Ezequiel Morales, among others.
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Gone are the years of rationing, of corrugated iron drums on the rooftops to conserve supply water that I entered the houses only once a week, the years of experiments to cause rain like the bombardment of the clouds with silver nitrate or even the towing an iceberg from the frozen waters of the Arctic Ocean, an idea that has not been developed in practice but for which there are reports and action plans.
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But what does desalination consist of? How is it produced?
The Sea Water Desalination Station (EDAM) Las Palmas III is the most important in the Canary Islands with an average daily production of around 80,000 m³. The Piedra Santa industrial water production complex is considered a pioneer worldwide for its continuous implementation of improvements in design and modes of operation.
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Sea water desalination produced by reverse osmosisAfter the collection and pumping of sea water, an exhaustive filtration in several stages, a chemical pretreatment, high pressure pumping and final remineralization, because after the treatment the water is too pure to be consumed and always requires the contribution of mineral salts .
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Reverse osmosis is a membrane technology for the production of pure water with a low salt content, free of viruses and chemical contaminants. Membranes called precisely osmosis are used, whose configuration varies depending on the nature of the water to be treated but which in any case offers an optimal water result.
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The water produced by the Las Palmas III desalination plant is finally pumped through a pipeline network of more than 1800 kilometers in length up to 50 tanks strategically located throughout the city to supply water to all homes.
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