By John — Desalination News
Jersey Water will invest £26 million to expand the output of its desalination plant, the utility announced, calling it the largest water-resource investment on the Channel Island since its Queen’s Valley Reservoir was commissioned more than 35 years ago.
The upgrade, set to begin in 2027, is expected to increase the desalination plant’s output capacity by roughly 50 percent, giving the island additional freshwater supply during extended dry periods and droughts. Jersey Water Chief Executive Helier Smith said the investment was necessary to maintain “a resilient and secure water supply” as the island faces increasingly volatile weather patterns, including drought conditions that have put growing pressure on its reservoir-dependent supply network.
To help fund the upgrade and a wider slate of infrastructure work, Jersey Water confirmed household water charges will rise by 8 pence a day starting January 1, 2027 — an increase of £2.55 a month, or £30.60 a year, for a typical household. The utility framed the increase as part of a broader 2026–2027 business plan that extends well beyond desalination, including treatment works improvements, expanded water storage, mains renewal, leak-monitoring systems, and operational resilience upgrades designed to carry the island’s water network through 2030.
Alongside the desalination expansion, Jersey Water is directing £2 million toward research and pilot trials for removing PFAS — per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a group of persistent synthetic chemicals increasingly scrutinized by water regulators worldwide — from its supply. Pilot trials evaluating different PFAS treatment technologies began in May at both of the island’s treatment facilities, and the utility said that work will continue through 2026 and 2027 alongside the desalination project.
Jersey, a 46-square-mile island with no river large enough to meet its own water needs independently, has relied on a combination of reservoirs, groundwater boreholes and its desalination plant for decades, making the facility a comparatively larger share of the island’s overall supply mix than is typical for most UK or European utilities of similar size. That dependence has made the plant’s reliability and capacity a recurring point of public and political attention whenever drought conditions tighten supply margins, as they have with increasing frequency in recent years.
The planned 50 percent capacity increase would give Jersey Water considerably more flexibility to lean on desalinated water during the kind of extended dry spells that have strained the island’s reservoirs, reducing its reliance on rainfall patterns that have grown less predictable. The utility did not specify the desalination plant’s current output capacity or name the contractor expected to carry out the upgrade work, and said further details of the 2026–2027 business plan would be published as the investment program gets underway.
(Source: Water Magazine) (Source: Jersey Water)