Anglian Water has gone out to tender with an AMP8 contract to procure up to two Desalination Technical Partners to support it in the development stages for two sites identified in its Water Resources Management Plan (WRMP24).
WRMP24 identified significant challenges for the East of England, primarily due to a forecasted reduction in available supply of potable water and an increase in the demand forecast. Without intervention, a daily shortfall of 593 megalitres (Ml) of water is estimated by 2050, which equates to approximately half of the current volume of water entering the network.
Two desalination plants have been included as part of the water company’s Adaptive Plan to address the shortfall in Norfolk and Lincolnshire. Both desalination plants will abstract and desalinate seawater from the North Sea.
In December last year Anglian Water sought market input ahead of going out to tender in 2025 with a £700 million desalination programme – saying it was looking to develop up to three Desalination Plants in its region.
At that time the water company explained that it was currently planning on running two tenders - one tender for two technical partners to assist with the development and design of two Desalination Plants (Bacton & Mablethorpe) and another tender for a Competitively Appointed Provider (CAP) to deliver the Bacton project.
Ofwat allowed Anglian Water funding for the development of schemes for desalination plants at Bacton and Mablethorpe in its PR24 Final Determination on the company’s AMP8 Business Plan in December last year. Both schemes are also among the RAPID solutions for PR24.
Initial design assumptions are that the desalination plant will include pre-treatment, reverse osmosis, and remineralisation, before the treated water is blended and pumped into supply and the brine waste is discharged via a long outfall to sea.
The water company is looking for a Partner who can provide the necessary technical expertise for the development phase of its desalination programme. Anglian is seeking to appoint two partners (one primary and one secondary) with experience of the development and delivery of major desalination projects.
The primary partner will lead on the design and engineering services of both projects (Norfolk and Lincolnshire) up until handover with the Competitively Appointed Provider (CAP).
The secondary partner may be called upon to provide a secondary view on critical and important design outputs, as well as being available to provide resilience.
Desalination is a new technology for Anglian Water - the company acknowledges it does not have sufficient experience within the business and expertise is limited within its usual supply chain.
The Primary Technical Partner will be awarded the minimum scope of work for both sites and any additional work over and above this is to be awarded at Anglian Water’s discretion.
Although the tender notice value is £29 million (ex VAT), at this stage the bidder is only guaranteed the minimum scope spend, estimated to be £4.7 million.
Anglian Water has also noted that the geopolitical landscape, along with regulations from the Environment Agency and other governing bodies, may evolve during the contract period. may impact spend and/or the scope – which it describes as a “known unknown risk” for this procurement.
Current estimated start and end contract dates are 1 November 2025 to 31 October 2030, with a possible further extension option to 31 October 2035
The tender process will include two stages - RFI & RFP and suppliers must be shortlisted from RFI to RFP to continue participation in stage two.
Interested suppliers can access further guidance and information via the Scanmarket portal by registering to the event 2024 1232 Desalination DTP RFI. Suppliers who are not already set up as a supplier in the system will need to register as a new supplier first. Once they have completed the registration the system will automatically provide them with access.
Outputs from a market engagement exercise conducted between December 2024 and January 2025 have been included as support documents to the RFI event. The tender will be opened with a draft version of the contract terms. A draft copy will be uploaded to the RFP event on Scanmarket and a final version will replace these at some point during the RFI process.
Deadline for requests to participate is 6 July 2025. Click here to access the Scanmarket portal.