Spanish group Coxabengoa has officially begun commercial operation at Abu Dhabi’s Taweelah desalination plant.

The plant has successfully passed rigorous final performance tests, marking the start of commercial operation of the full plant (combining Phase One and Phase Two), and operations have now attained full production levels. For 30 consecutive days, the plant passed final performance tests, demonstrating its capacity by desalinating 204m gallons in a single day, exceeding the planned capacity by 2%.

Following the contractual tests, the plant has now been handed over to the project company, Taweelah RO Desalination Company, a joint venture between the Abu Dhabi companies Taqa and Mubadala, as well as Acwa Power, a power development, investment, and operation specialist.

Taweelah is currently the largest reverse osmosis (RO) desalination plant in the world, featuring a daily output of 909,218cu/m.; it is also said to be remarkable for its exceptional energy efficiency, with specific consumption substantially lower than slated in the plant’s first planning stages.

The Taweelah desalination plant guarantees supply to the city of Abu Dhabi throughout the year. It is also the emirate’s first large-scale plant to combine the production of drinking water with the generation of clean energy, as a result of a photovoltaic solar field with a capacity of more than 70MWp.

The project, located on the coast of the Persian Gulf, is part of the plan developed by the UAE government to encourage private participation in the development of the country’s infrastructures.