1 Sep 2014
Sydvatten AB: Clean water a vital mission
“Safe water is our mission,” says Carina Hertzman, Chief Financial Officer at Sydvatten, meeting up with NIB Newsletter in the company’s head office in the city of Malmö. “We are very happy about the ongoing upgrade project in our largest water purification plant, Ringsjöverket, where we are adding ultraviolet technology to the purification process. This will make the drinking water we produce even safer.”
The municipally owned Sydvatten is southern Sweden’s largest producer of drinking water, serving a total of some 900,000 inhabitants. The major part of the water is taken from Lake Bolmen, and then pumped through an 80-kilometre tunnel down to Skåne, the southernmost province of Sweden. With its clean and peaceful woodland surroundings, the large lake is a good and important water source. At the end of the tunnel, before reaching the taps of more than 500,000 end-users, the water is processed through several basins in the Ringsjöverket plant.
“The UV-lamps will be installed at the end of the basin line, after the chemical precipitation and slow sand filtration, and replace the chlorine purification. Only some smaller amounts of chlorine will be added to ensure water quality before the water is sent off through the pipes”, Ms Hertzman explains. “The ultraviolet barrier will also eliminate microbes more effectively, and therefore minimize the risk of parasite contamination in the future.”
At the same time, Sydvatten is also expanding its water distribution network, to reach new parts of the province.
“The water supplies here in Skåne are not sufficient for future demands”, says Carina Hertzman. “Therefore, connecting our municipalities to the Bolmen water source is of great importance for the region when it comes to the security of supply. Right now, we are expanding our network by 20 kilometres of new pipes to the city of Ängelholm on the west coast. This will connect up to 50,000 people to our water network by the end of this year.”
The Ringsjöverket project and the pipe construction are partly financed by a SEK 67 million loan (EUR 8 million) from NIB. Carina Hertzman mentions the suitable loan structure as the main reason for choosing NIB as a partner.
“Finding long-term project financing is not easy. In fact, there are hardly any financiers who can offer us funds on terms longer than three to four years. So the NIB loan with a tenor of ten years is much more in line with the nature of these projects. We were also looking for a partner with experience of similar infrastructure financing, and NIB has that.”
“But planning ahead, there is still much to do about securing the water system in the province”, Ms Hertzman continues. “In the future, we would for example like to see more cooperation with other water suppliers in the region. After all, as water producers, we all have a vital mission”, she concludes.