Caramondani Desalination Plants

Caramondani Desalination Plants is recognized as a pioneer in the desalination sector in Cyprus.

Its founder Gerasimos Caramondanis, having predicted the country’s future needs for drinking water in 1973, promoted the desalination of the brackish waters of the Mesaoria plains by taking part in the tender as the only Cypriot participation. Many years later, in 1996, Caramondani Desalination Plants won the Water Development Department tender of the first ever Private Finance Initiative project in Cyprus, the Dhekelia Desalination Plant. This was a US$142 million, 10-year BOOT contract (Build-Own-Operate-Transfer) for the first reverse osmosis seawater desalination plant in Cyprus. The plant, which came as a result of the island’s continuously increasing demand for potable water, was designed to produce 40.000 m3 of potable water per day in accordance with EU Drinking Water Standards.

Following international tenders in 2005 for a new 20-year BOOT contract (2007 – 2027), Caramondani Desalination Plants won and totally refurbished the same plant utilizing two KSB x 2,25 MW high pressure pumps and spiral wound membranes to produce 40.000 m³ of potable water per day. By April 2009 the capacity of the plant was increased to 60.000 m³/day and now operates using three KSB high pressure pumps, 2,25 MW each. Thanks to the pioneering spirit of its management, new technologies were tested and applied in the Dhekelia Desalination Plant (DDP).

For example, – DDP was the first desalination plant in the world to use Boron Selective Resins for the removal of boron from desalinated water (< 0,5 ppm).

DDP was the first large scale desalination plant to test and use the energy recovery system of ERI Inc. USA, which resulted in energy savings of 4 MW and in the 5th Cyprus Energy Savings Award.

As part of its expansion in the field of desalination, in 2001 Caramondani Desalination Plants acquired the Italian company Osmo Sistemi, thus achieving an international presence and becoming the only vertically integrated Cypriot company in the desalination sector.

The position of Caramondani Desalination Plants in the desalination sector was further strengthened in January 2019 when the company signed a new 25-year BOOT contract with the Water Development Department for the new 15.000 m³/day Paphos Seawater Desalination Plant.