Victorian Desalination Project

Project details

The desalination plant – comprising  29 buildings including the reverse osmosis building, the heart of the VDP – with a design capacity of  over 160 billion litres of water a year, flexible water ordering of between 0 and 150 billion litres, and the capability to expand to 200 billion litres a year

Marine structures: two underground tunnels located 15 metres below the seabed measuring 1.2 km and 1.5 km long and each with a 4 metre internal diameter, and associated marine intake and outlet structures located more than 20 metres below the sea’s surface

Water transfer pipeline: 84 km, 1.9 metre diameter, two-way pipeline that provides desalinated water or catchment supplies to communities throughout Melbourne, South Gippsland and Westernport, as required;

An underground 220kV High Voltage Alternating Current (HVAC) power cable which was the longest of its type in the world is co-located with the pipeline to power the plant (all operational power is offset by Renewable Energy Certificates).  Constructed as part of the project, the power line is now operated and maintained by Ausnet Services under contract to AquaSure.

Fibre optic cables have been laid alongside the power cables and on the pipeline to allow communication of important monitoring information on the pipe and power networks. Additional capacity on this high-speed communications cable is available to facilitate improved broadband capability to surrounding communities subject to further development by state and federal departments responsible for telecommunications and infrastructure development.