GS Inima desalination plant wins award at Global Water Awards 2022

A desalination plant is pictured in the Copiapo region of the Atacama Desert in Chile. [GS E&C]

GS Inima, a GS Engineering & Construction (GS E&C) subsidiary based in Spain, was named a winner at the Global Water Awards 2022 in the water desalination plant category, the company said Tuesday.

GS Inima’s desalination plant in the Atacama Desert, in the northern region of Chile, was chosen as the Desalination Plant of the Year by Global Water Intelligence during the annual Global Water Awards held in Madrid on May 18.

The state-funded Atacama desalination plant project was approved by the Chilean government in 2015 with the goal of supplying drinking water to 210,000 residents in the area. The Atacama Desert is one of the driest regions in the country with extremely low yearly precipitation, nearing zero.

A consortium of GS Inima and Chile's Claro Vicuna Valenzuela won the bid for the project in 2017 and finished the construction in February 2022. The Atacama desalination plant, which can desalinate 38,880-cubic meters (10.27 million gallons) of water a day, is currently supplying quality drinking water to 70 percent of the population in the region, explained GS E&C.

Global Water Intelligence cited the high energy efficiency and advanced construction technology of the Atacama plant in giving the award. The plant consumes 2.63 kilowatt-hours of power per cubic meter, according to GS E&C.

GS E&C acquired Spain’s water treatment company Inima in 2011 and rebranded the company as GS Inima. The water treatment company also won a 2.5-trillion-won ($2 billion) project in Oman in 2020.

BY SHIN HA-NEE [shin.hanee@joongang.co.kr]