SA Water

About the Utility

SA Water is a statutory corporation owned by the Government of South Australia, operating under its own Act and the Public Corporations Act. Its board is appointed by the Government and chaired by Allan Holmes, with David Ryan as Chief Executive. The Essential Services Commission of South Australia (ESCOSA) is its independent economic regulator: it issues water retail licences, sets consumer protection standards and determines allowable revenue for four-year regulatory periods. The corporation provides drinking water, sewerage and recycled water services, and in 2024-25 delivered 277 billion litres of water to 756,505 homes and businesses. It operates the longest water mains supply network of any Australian water utility.

Water System

South Australia depends heavily on the River Murray, alongside reservoirs, groundwater and desalination. The Adelaide Desalination Plant at Lonsdale, with capacity of 100 gigalitres a year, is Adelaide's only climate-independent source and can meet about half of the metropolitan region's annual requirements. In 2024-25, the lowest inflows into the Mount Lofty Ranges reservoirs left combined reservoir levels at 40% in January 2025, the lowest in more than 25 years. Water quality held, with every Safe Drinking Water Act requirement met, but dry soil movement drove a rise in water main leaks and breaks.

Wastewater System

SA Water's sewerage system serves 563,803 connections through 9,372 km of sewerage mains and 43 wastewater treatment plants, as at June 2025. The corporation describes itself as Australia's second largest recycler of water, reusing one in every three litres of treated wastewater; the Virginia Pipeline Scheme carries recycled water from Bolivar to irrigators on the northern Adelaide plains. In the first year of the 2024-28 regulatory period, environmental overflow events stayed within target, while odour complaints and customers with repeat internal overflows exceeded theirs.

Investment & Priorities

For the regulatory period that began in July 2024, ESCOSA approved $3.3 billion of net capital expenditure, SA Water's most ambitious programme to date, and actual capital investment reached a record $799.9 million in 2024-25. Housing growth is central: $1.5 billion of the programme is dedicated to the State Government's Housing Roadmap, and a ministerial direction places directed investment outside ESCOSA's normal price determination. On the Eyre Peninsula, early works have begun on a desalination plant at Billy Lights Point targeted to operate by mid-2026.

Sustainability & Resilience

SA Water is one of South Australia's largest single electricity users, and its Zero Cost Energy Future project, an investment of more than $300 million, combines solar generation, energy storage and demand scheduling. It targets net zero emissions, and base-load operations on fully renewable energy, by 2030. It is also preparing 50-year water security strategies for regions across the state, and the Resilient Water Futures strategy for Greater Adelaide finds that shortfalls are possible under worst-case scenarios even with full use of the desalination plant.

Key Challenges

1. Securing Adelaide's supply as drought and a drying Murray-Darling Basin cut reservoir inflows.
2. Delivering a record capital programme under ESCOSA scrutiny of its planning, delivery and funding.
3. Reducing unplanned water supply interruptions, still above target, as main breaks rise.
4. Enabling housing growth with new water and wastewater infrastructure across Adelaide's growth areas.
5. Upgrading the Baroota, Warren, Sturt and Mount Bold dams, which need safety works.

Major Projects