Vivant starts operation of PH's first utility-scale desalination plant
Visayas-based infrastructure and utility firm Vivant Corporation announced that its subsidiary Vivant Water is now producing fresh water from the first train or skid of its desalination plant in Cordova, Cebu.
In a statement, the firm said it has made history as the first company to establish a utility-scale seawater desalination plant in the country.

With the completion of the first skid, the plant is now ready to provide five million liters of clean and potable water per day to as much as 5,000 households within Metro Cebu.
Utility-scale refers to electrical plant or equipment, whose operation, as an individual entity would cause a noticeable change in the operation of a utility or discernible effect on the operation of a network.
When fully operational, the water from the Vivant plant will become a sustainable source of drinking water and will ultimately help address the ongoing water crisis in Metro Cebu.
“Vivant Water is extremely proud of this accomplishment and we are happy to offer an alternative solution to the water security issue in Cebu province, and ultimately the entire Philippines,” said Vivant Water President Atty. Jess Garcia.
He added that, “The traditional sources of water in the Philippines is from ground water and surface water, seawater desalination can be the third source of water, and we are proud to be the pioneers.”
The desalination plant will eventually generate 20 million liters a day of potable water in the first phase which will be operated and managed by Isla Mactan-Cordova Corporation (IMCC), a subsidiary of Vivant Hydrocore Holdings Inc., which was awarded a 25-year contract to supply desalinated water to the Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD).
IMCC President and CEO Jess Anthony Garcia pointed out that 20 million liters a day is equivalent to the average daily consumption of 20,000 Filipino households.
He said that the generation capacity of the plant can be expanded to 50 million liters a day. The project uses state-of-the-art seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) technology which is a globally utilized technology to remove salt from the seawater and produce drinking water.
The project aims to address the gap between water demand and supply while allowing severely extracted groundwater aquifers to replenish naturally.