Permanent desalination plant
Larnaca
- Type:
- Permanent
- Capacity:
- 60,000 m³/day
- In service since:
- 2001
- District:
- Larnaca
Average output
55,700
m³ a day in the week to 14 September
Running at
93%
of its 60,000 m³ a day that week
Share of desalinated water
23%
of all desalinated water on the island that week
Output week by week
Average m³ a day in each week with a published bulletin. The dashed line is the plant's capacity, 60,000 m³ a day. There is no bulletin for August.
← swipe to see the full chart →
Cyprus Water Development Department, weekly «Δελτίο Νερού» workbooks, 2026 (plant output published from June).
About
The Larnaca plant stands south-west of Larnaca airport, next to the town's sewage treatment works. Larnaca Municipality challenged its siting inside the salt-lake protection zone, and the Supreme Court rejected the challenge in 2001. The plant mainly supplies Nicosia and Larnaca: its water joins treated dam water at Tersefanou and goes on to Nicosia by conveyor.
It was first built by Larnaca Water Partners, a joint venture of the Israeli firms IDE Technologies and Oceana, under a 10-year build-own-operate contract. It produced its first water on 19 May 2001, a month late. When that contract expired in July 2011, the plant passed to the state. A new contractor, MN Larnaca Desalination, owned by Israel's Mekorot and Cyprus's Netcom, rebuilt it and has run it since 4 July 2015, 379 days later than planned. The contract runs to June 2040 at a base price of €0.594 per m³.
The rebuild cut its energy use to about 3.2 kWh per m³, against about 4.5 at the other plants, and with the state as owner it is the cheapest of the five. It runs on grid electricity; the Water Development Department (WDD) has said it is trying to add solar panels. Rough seas stopped it in March 2026, and a strike was averted on 13 August 2026 by a three-year collective agreement.
Location
Other desalination plants
Main source: gov.cy