SINGAPORE - The award-winning Keppel Marina East Desalination Plant has bagged yet another international prize.

It was one of three PUB projects that won a total of four gold awards at the biennial International Water Association (IWA) Project Innovation Awards on Tuesday at the IWA World Congress and Exhibition held in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The Keppel plant, which can treat both freshwater and seawater, won the IWA Grand Innovation Award, given to the most outstanding example of innovation in the water sector, as well as the gold award in the Exceptional Project Execution And Delivery category.

PUB's two other projects, the upgrade of Choa Chu Kang Waterworks and the Changi Water Reclamation Plan Digital Twin project, clinched the gold award in the Market-changing Water Technology And Infrastructure and Performance Improvement And Operational Solutions categories respectively.

"We are honoured to receive the awards, which are testament to PUB's continuous innovation and research and development efforts in advancing water resilience and environmental sustainability," said chief executive Goh Si Hou, in a media release.

The Keppel project opened in February last year, and is Singapore's first large-scale, dual-mode desalination plant.

Located completely underground, the plant produces up to 136 million litres of fresh drinking water a day by treating either seawater or freshwater.

Its green rooftop space is open to the public for community activities.

The second winning project, the upgraded Choa Chu Kang facility, which is Singapore's oldest water treatment plant, is now home to a large-scale ceramic membrane system, with ozone-biological activated carbon filters that can treat raw water in a more efficient and environmentally friendly way.

And at the Changi plant, the third project, its digital twin platform is a plant simulation model developed in 2019 that can replicate processes, obtain real-time data and analyse information, alerting operators to any irregularities.

The project innovation awards comprise six categories, with three finalists in each.

Winners were chosen from 203 entries from 52 countries.

The project innovation awards are part of the larger IWA Awards, which comprise nine sub-categories such as global water, young leadership, and water and development.