[Chinese Mainland] Everbright Water Consortium Wins the Concession Project of Baoding Xianrenqiao Reclaimed Water Plant: 150,000 m³/day, 40-year Concession Period

2026年10月14日, a consortium led by Everbright Water (01857.HK), a subsidiary of Everbright Environment, won the bid for the Xianrenqiao Reclaimed Water Plant and Supporting Pipe Network Project Franchise in Baoding City, Hebei Province, to be implemented under the BOT model. The project involves the construction of a reclaimed water plant with a designed treatment capacity of 15万 cubic meters per day, approximately 13.4 kilometers of supporting sewage trunk mains and approximately 3.7 kilometers of reclaimed water pipe network, with a franchise period of 40年 (including a construction period of 2年 and an operation period of 38年). The project is located in the Fuhe River Basin upstream of Baiyangdian and is an important municipal infrastructure project for implementing the ecological and environmental protection requirements of Baiyangdian.

I. A 40年 Pact for a Reclaimed Water Plant

10月14日, China Everbright Environment Group Limited issued an announcement: the consortium led by its subsidiary Everbright Water won the bid in the public tender for the Xianrenqiao Reclaimed Water Plant and Supporting Pipe Network Project Franchise in Baoding City and received the letter of acceptance. The consortium will form a joint venture project company with several independent third parties to undertake the project and proceed with implementation after signing the formal agreement.

This is not an isolated project award, but a standard franchise transaction: the project will be implemented under the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) model, with a franchise period of up to 40年, consisting of a 2年 construction period and a 38年 operation period. The investment, financing, construction, operation and maintenance scope of the project company constitutes a complete integrated "plant-network-storage" facility system.

II. Breakdown of Project Construction Content

• Main body of the reclaimed water plant — designed treatment capacity of 15万 cubic meters per day, including a municipal sewage treatment system, a sludge treatment system and a rainwater/sewage emergency storage system, of which the emergency storage system has a designed capacity of 3万 cubic meters.
• Supporting pipe network — a total length of approximately 13.4 kilometers of sewage trunk mains and approximately 3.7 kilometers of reclaimed water pipe network, plus supporting works such as access roads and bridges.
• Functional positioning — to form a comprehensive water environment infrastructure system integrating sewage treatment, emergency support and reclaimed water utilization.

From the perspective of engineering structure, the combination of "sewage plant + sludge treatment + rainwater/sewage emergency storage + dual pipe networks" corresponds to a composite facility oriented toward basin governance: ensuring sewage treatment and reclaimed water supply in the dry season, undertaking storage and peak shaving in the rainy season, and achieving standardized sludge treatment and disposal simultaneously. The scale of 15万 cubic meters per day is in the medium-to-large range among similar reclaimed water plants, and the integrated packaging of the pipe network with the plant area also provides conveyance conditions for the actual consumption of reclaimed water.

III. Upstream of Baiyangdian: A Market-Based Pivot for the Ecological Barrier

Baoding City is located in the core area of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei coordinated development, and the Xianrenqiao project is situated in the Fuhe River Basin upstream of Baiyangdian. Baiyangdian is the largest freshwater lake on the North China Plain and an important ecological barrier for Xiong'an New Area, and its water quality improvement imposes continuously high standards on upstream inflow. As one of the main rivers flowing into the lake, the Fuhe River's capacity for sewage collection and treatment and reclaimed water utilization in towns along its course directly determines the level of load reduction into the lake.

Everbright Environment stated in its announcement that this bid win further deepened its business layout in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region; the implementation of the project will further strengthen the water environment governance barrier upstream of Baiyangdian and is of positive significance for continuously improving the regional water ecological environment and serving the ecological coordinated development of Xiong'an New Area and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. Against the backdrop of intensifying competition in the water sector and increasing difficulty in acquiring high-quality projects, securing such a project is also regarded by the company as a reflection of its comprehensive strength in investment, technology, construction and operation.

IV. Considerations of the 40年 Franchise Period

A franchise period of 40年 is a long-cycle arrangement in the water infrastructure sector. For local governments, packaging an integrated water environment facility combining plant and network as a whole and introducing a professional operator for long-term operation can smooth fiscal expenditure pressure while leveraging the operator's technical and management experience to ensure the continuity of governance in the Baiyangdian Basin; for enterprises, an operation period of 38年 means long-term cash flow coexisting with operational responsibility — facility performance, effluent stability and reclaimed water consumption rate, any one of these long-term indicators falling behind will erode project returns.

It is worth noting that the project is named and approved as a "reclaimed water plant" rather than a "sewage treatment plant," and the reclaimed water pipe network is built simultaneously with the sewage trunk mains, conveying a clear signal: the effluent positioning is not compliance discharge, but resource reuse. This is consistent with the national policy orientation of "sewage resource utilization" in recent years — from the typical cases of the six-ministry reclaimed water allocation pilot announced on 10月15日, it can be seen that the integrated "treatment-allocation-utilization" approach is becoming the mainstream paradigm in the industry.

V. Three Observations on the Market

First, the model of binding watershed governance to franchise operations is making a comeback. Watersheds with clear ecological target constraints, such as Baiyangdian and Fuhe River, provide clear performance anchors for long-term franchise operations, and it is expected that similar projects will be released around Xiong'an and along major rivers. Second, reclaimed water plants are becoming the mainstream form of new projects, and the incremental market for municipal wastewater treatment is shifting from "treatment scale" to "reuse capacity." The packaged design of supporting pipe networks and consumption scenarios will become key to bidding competitiveness. Third, the regional deepening strategy of leading water platforms is evident — Everbright Water has already established multiple locations in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, and winning such projects will further increase the concentration of the regional market. The space for small and medium-sized enterprises to participate lies more in equipment supply, subcontracted engineering, and operation services.

TIANYI TECH Co., Ltd. (TIANYI LIMITED) has long been deeply engaged in the fields of wastewater treatment and reclaimed water reuse. Centering on three major directions — low-carbon processes, resource recovery, and smart operations — it provides full-chain services from solution design, equipment manufacturing, engineering construction to operation management for municipal wastewater plants, industrial parks, and various water-using entities. With the goals of "stable compliance, energy saving and consumption reduction, and resource circulation," the company continues to help customers reduce operating costs and enhance system resilience in the green and low-carbon transition.

Source: Compiled from the announcement by China Everbright Environment Group Limited 2026年10月14日 "Everbright Water Consortium Wins the Franchise Project for Xianrenqiao Reclaimed Water Plant and Supporting Pipe Network Project in Baoding, Hebei" and public information. The formal franchise agreement for the project has not yet been signed, and specific terms shall be subject to the formally signed agreement and government approval documents.