The Water Treatment Plant is one of the largest multi-stream facilities of its kind in Europe, and the largest in the UK.

It is capable of supplying more than 2,000 cubic metres of demineralised water an hour. Sembcorp also distributes raw and potable water. The Water Treatment Plant was substantially upgraded in the 1990s with new computerised monitoring, control technology and plant instrumentation being installed. It has 12,000 cubic metres of intermediate storage capacity allowing for the continuous supply of water to customers.

Sembcorp supplies around 9 million cubic metres of demineralised water to plants at Wilton and operates a tanker business providing demineralised water to customers both on-site and across the UK. The process of turning untreated water into demineralised water involves clarification and filtration through cation, anion and mixed bed units. The product is used for producing steam at the Wilton Power Station and through a piped distribution system throughout the Wilton site for other process plant use.

Sembcorp also distributes around 40 million cubic metres of raw water and three million cubic metres of potable water at Wilton. Raw water and potable water are available via reservoirs owned by Sembcorp and fed by one of the largest water supply systems in Europe. The company owns the reservoirs, a potable water pumping facility and has separate raw and potable piped distributions systems.

Potable water is used for purposes on site, customer production requirements and is also delivered to hydrants for use in fire and emergency service applications. The raw water is classed as river water, being generally used for cooling purposes as well as a back up for fire and emergency service applications and is delivered to customers’ sumps.

In addition, Northumbrian Water has spent £145 million on effluent treatment facilities at nearby Bran Sands. These facilities are available via pipeline and provide specialist biological effluent treatment.