Carlsbad desalination plant will be sold to investment firm for $1 billion
An affiliate of Aberdeen Standard Investments has agreed to buy the Carlsbad desalination plant in San Diego County for more than $1 billion, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
A transaction could be announced as soon as this week, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter is private. The Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant, named for a former mayor, is owned by Orion Water Partners, the joint venture between Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners and Brookfield Infrastructure Partners affiliate Poseidon.
Representatives for Aberdeen, Stonepeak, Poseidon and Brookfield all declined to comment.
The plant removes salt and impurities from seawater. It was developed as a public-private partnership and delivers about 50 million gallons of fresh water per day, enough to serve roughly 400,000 people and about a third of all water generated in fast-growing San Diego County. Its capacity is set to rise to 60 million gallons after approval from local authorities to construct a stand-alone pumping station to draw seawater and build a new intake structure that will reduce the number of fish sucked into the plant.
The ownership group signed a 30-year agreement with the San Diego County Water Authority in 2012 and later constructed a 10-mile pipeline as well as the plant itself, which opened in 2015 and is the largest in the Western Hemisphere, according to its website.
