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Bottoms up to Singapore's fourth and largest NEWater plant, which was officially opened by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on 15 March this year.

NEWater is the third National Tap and the pillar of Singapore's water sustainability efforts.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the new plant, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said, "As a nation, we can be proud of how we have overcome our water challenges. NEWater, in particular, is a Singapore success story. Produced using advanced membrane technologies, NEWater allows us to use each drop of water more than once, and therefore multiply our effective supply of water. It is a key pillar of our efforts to become self-sufficient in water."

Sited in Ulu Pandan, the new plant will serve 200 new customers in the western and city areas. Besides industries in Tuas, Jurong and Jurong Island, it will also be supplied for the first time to commercial buildings in the city area for their aircon cooling towers, landscaping and general washing.

The largest plant with a capacity of 148,000 cubic metres per day (32 million gallons per day), it is the first NEWater plant to be designed, built, owned and operated by a private company under a Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) between PUB and Keppel Integrated Engineering (KIE).

"PUB is sharing its NEWater expertise with the private sector such as KIE so that they too can have a stake in Singapore's water management. Through participation in national projects, our local companies can build up their track record and market their expertise overseas. This will further boost Singapore as a global hydrohub," said PUB's Chief Executive Khoo Teng Chye.

The new plant uses the same established NEWater technology that was pioneered by PUB and used in the first three NEWater plants at Bedok, Kranji and Seletar. NEWater from this plant will undergo the same stringent tests by PUB and audits by the internal and external audit panels.

"PUB assures our customers that NEWater from this fourth plant will meet the same high stringent quality standards as those from PUB's other three NEWater plants," said Mr Khoo.

By Teo Yin Yin

 


Demand for NEWater has been growing since it was launched with a bang in 2002. Today, it meets 15% of Singapore's water needs and this will grow to 30% by 2011 when a fifth NEWater plant is completed in Changi.

It is highly sought-after in the industrial and commercial sectors because of its ultra-clean water quality. To date, more than 300 industrial and commercial customers have taken up NEWater. Many wafer fabrication plants and petrochemical companies have turned to NEWater for their manufacturing processes as these require high-quality water.

One of PUB's first NEWater customers, Systems on Silicon Manufacturing, a wafer fabrication plant, has seen its needs for NEWater rise by 30 per cent over the last four years.

All NEWater customers also enjoyed a price reduction to $1 per cubic metre from 1 April this year. This is the second price adjustment since January 2005 when the price was first lowered from $1.30 to $1.15 per cubic metre. Besides production costs, the price of NEWater also includes the cost of transmission and distribution.

"With economies of scale and higher operational efficiencies in the production of NEWater, we are able to reduce the price of NEWater by more than 10 percent," said Mr Lim Chiow Giap, Director of Water Supply (Plants). This piece of good news looks set to boost the rising demand for NEWater.

To cater for the rising demand, the production capacities of the Kranji and Bedok NEWater plants will be expanded progressively.

PUB has projected that the demand in the Bedok area will double over the next three years. A tender was called in 2006 to expand the Bedok NEWater plant more than twofold from 32,000 cubic metres (7 million gallons per day) to 82,000 cubic metres (18 million gallons per day). To be carried out in phases, the expansion plans will be completed by 2008.

The capacity of the Kranji NEWater plant has grown from 40,000 cubic metres (9 million gallons per day) to 56,000 cubic metres (12 million gallons per day). In its next phase of expansion, this will be upped to 77,000 cubic metres (17 million gallons per day) by the end of the year.