Dresden needs water: new river power plant planned on the Elbe River

Dresden wants to secure its future water supply and is planning a new water system including a river power plant on the Elbe. The total investment should be more than 320 million euros, the administration announced on Thursday. The state capital is thus responding above all to the huge water requirements of the chip industry in the north of the city. After Bosch, Infineon and others, the world's largest chip company TSMC from Taiwan also wants to build a plant in Dresden. By 2026, the three existing waterworks at Hosterwitz, Tolkewitz and Coschütz are to be upgraded and the Albertstadt reserve waterworks is to be put back into operation. The new river power plant is to be built in the west of Dresden.

"The current economic boom in the north of Dresden will have a positive impact on our city beyond the current decade," said Mayor Dirk Hilbert (FDP) with conviction. An efficient infrastructure is a necessary advance performance, with which one can make a difference as a municipality in the global location competition. "The river water plant means sustainability, security of supply and price stability for the entire urban society and moreover preserves the groundwater sustainably as a valuable drinking water resource."

In addition to the city, the state of Saxony and the supplier SachsenEnergie are also involved in the planning. The new river water plant is intended to decouple the industrial water supply from the drinking water supply and conserve the valuable resource of water, it said. "We have to shape the future today in order to give the growing high-tech industry and the people of Dresden a perspective and security for tomorrow," emphasized Frank Brinkmann, CEO of SachsenEnergie. With the new river water plant, he said, the aim is to enable industrial growth and new settlements without compromising the drinking water supply for the population.