- The announcement occurs in the context of the serious drought that Catalonia and areas of Andalusia are going through that currently lack such plants.
The Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, plans to visit the Torrevieja desalination plant tomorrow, Wednesday, to check learn, first hand, about its operation. The visit take place in the midst of a drought in Catalonia where there is a proposal to increase the capacity to send water for urban consumption to Barcelona through the Sagunto plant in the province of Valencia.
The visit to the Torrevieja facility is scheduled for eleven in the morning with Sánchez arriving by Falcon at the San Javier military airport.
The Torrevieja plant can produce the largest volume of water in Spain with 80 cubic hectometers, although it only came close to that figure in 2019. Currently, the bidding phase of the award of a new project is underway, which will allow this capacity to be expanded up to 120 hm³, with an investment of 108 million euros.
Although it was designed to produce equal parts of water for both urban consumption and for agricultural irrigation, when it was first opened in 2014, most of the flows have been allocated to agriculture.
Currently, around 80% of the water produced by the Torrevieja plant is destined for irrigation in the neighbouring Region of Murcia, particularly for intensive farming farms in the Campo de Cartagena-Mar Menor.
