Post by account_disabled on Mar 13, 2024 9:44:41 GMT
focus on what news the past year has brought us for our sector. In the legislative field, we finally have the new Royal Decree on drinking water RD 3/2023 (number easier to remember than the previous ones!), of January 10 (well, it is from 2023 but only for 10). After various discussions with the sector, handling of several versions and drafts, we now have this new Royal Decree published which we see may affect the desalination sector in the first place due to aspects related to the turbidity of drinking water at the different measurement points and its different required values, and on the other, by the return to parameters of the 1990 legislation such as hardness, which must be compatible with the value of the Langelier index (requirements that were not reflected in the European Directive 2020/2184) and could cause cost increases for the remineralization of our plants. The new hydrological plans for 2023-2027 unleash the political war again, leaving little room for intermediate positions or positions based on science or knowledge, which is something that precisely in Spain, and in the water sector, we have in quantity and quality. . Likewise, in October the European Union published the draft proposal for a Directive for the treatment of wastewater, in order to update the previous one, which is now 30 years old and thanks to which it was achieved that 98% of wastewater of the Union are collected and that 92% are treated appropriately.
The new challenges posed by this new Directive are: decarbonization and progress towards neutrality of the sector, the responsibility of the industry in the treatment of micropollutants (“polluter pays” concept), improving access to sanitation (especially for marginalized and vulnerable people) and require the monitoring of health parameters to evaluate water quality. Taking into account that as of June 26, 2023, the new European Regulation on Minimum Requirements for the Reuse of Wastewater for Agriculture also comes into force (published in 2020), we see that we will CZ Leads have to face some adaptations of our facilities, with investments and probably higher operating costs. This also aggravates the situation of operators, who in many cases are already facing extra costs due to the increase in the price of energy (and other supplies) during the year, whose compensation has not been well resolved in the contracts and does not seem easy to resolve from the legal and administrative point of view. Fortunately, investments are also flowing through various calls related to Next Generation funds; some directly associated with water (PERTE of Digitalization of the Water Sector) and others indirectly related (PERTE of Biogas or PERTE of Circular Economy). We hope that many projects will be awarded and that they will serve to modernize and increase the sustainability of our water infrastructures.
I also have to mention the funds from the different programs dedicated to innovation (European, such as LIFE or Horizon Europe, or national, such as the Missions, Challenges or other CDTI programs), in which Spanish companies and research centers are so successful. We hope that many projects related to the Next Generation funds will be awarded and that they will serve to modernize and increase the sustainability of our water infrastructures. It has also been a year rich in events, among which I would highlight the congresses of our sister associations AEAS, in Córdoba in September, EDS (European Desalination Society) in Las Palmas in May, and those held outside our borders by the International Desalination Association , IDA (Sydney, October) and the Latin American Desalination and Reuse Association, Aladyr (Santiago de Chile, October), where Spanish companies also always have important technical and commercial representation. Our association, AEDyR, also held two thematic conferences with great success; the Agriculture and Water Conference, which brought together administrations, irrigator communities and the water sector in Alicante in the month of May, and the Brine Recovery Conference from desalination plants in Malaga last November, in which interesting research on brine was presented. mining (brine mining; obtaining salts and chemicals from brines) or energy recovery from saline gradients. Both days were of special relevance because they discussed key and current issues in our country; water management for agriculture and increasing sustainability and the circular economy in the water sector.