Date: Friday 14 October 2016
Time: 8.30am – 2.00pm
Cost: Euro 70 per person
(includes transport, morning tea and lunch)
Gold Coast Desalination Plant
The Gold Coast Desalination Plant, located at Tugun, Gold Coast, Australia, uses reverse osmosis to produce drinking water for the Gold Coast, Logan and Brisbane. Desalinated water is a climate-resilient source of drinking water and ensures a consistent supply of safe and reliable drinking water.
The plant was completed in 2009, and can produce up to 125 million litres of drinking water a day.
To get to the Gold Coast Desalination Plant, seawater is drawn through an intake on the seabed and through a concrete-lined pipe underground. The seawater is then pumped from a 70 metre deep intake shaft at the plant and piped to the filtering and process buildings. It takes about one hour for the seawater to travel the length of the 2.2 kilometre intake tunnel.
Desalinated water is pumped to the Robina reservoir at Clover Hill, where it is mixed with treated water from Hinze Dam. The blended water is distributed mostly to the southern section of the South East Queensland Water Grid, which includes much of the Gold Coast. It can also be pumped north to Brisbane through the Southern Regional Water Pipeline.
While not currently required for base supply, the desalination plant operates in ‘hot standby’ mode, supplying an average of 12 ML to water grid every week, with the ability to become fully operational within 48 hours and supply up to 125 ML/day at full capacity.
During the 2011 floods, the Gold Coast Desalination Plant operated at full capacity and supplied about 20% of the water produced for South East Queensland. It was also used during 2013 when turbidity in untreated water at the Mt Crosby water treatment plants caused them to be shut down.
The plant also supplied water to the Gold Coast when the Mudgeeraba water treatment plant, the only plant that can service the southern portion of Gold Coast, was taken offline for an upgrade in September 2015.
The Smart Water Research Centre
The Smart Water Research Centre is a strategic partnership that builds, shares and applies new knowledge to improve water cycle management. Their membership consortium combines the strengths of a number of respected universities with an increasing network of industry partners providing a wealth of accumulated knowledge and expertise to meet the research needs of the water industry. From their hub on the Gold Coast, their state-of-the-art research facility offers cutting-edge water research focused through core capabilities. The Smart Water Research Centre also provide a program of education and training directed towards emerging industry needs as well as commercial laboratory services with their major partners, Gold Coast Water.
|8.30am||Meet at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, bus zone, Glenelg Street.|
|8.45am||Departure for the desalination plant at Tugan, Gold Coast|
|10.00am||Arrival desalination plant / Morning Tea|
|10.00am||Official welcome and safety induction|
|11.30am||Completion of the tour and depart for the SWRC|
|1:00pm||Welcome and introduction to the SWRC|
|1:15pm||Tour of the Facility|
|2:30pm||Departure for Brisbane|
|3:45pm||Arrival Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre|
This tour will involve a large element of walking; therefore delegates are encouraged to wear flat, enclosed footwear. The tour will also involve accessing an operational work site where Seqwater and Veolia require all delegates to wear personal protective equipment, including long sleeve shirts, long trousers, jeans or slacks (not shorts) and a broad-brimmed hat. Seqwater will provide a hard hat, safety vest, sunscreen and water bottles.