In October 2018, Water. Desalination + reuse (Faversham House) reported, citing Taiwan News, that the Greater Kinmen Desalination Plant was back in service after a refurbishment. Output doubled to 4,000 m³/day. The work fixed an overloaded sand filter, improved pre-treatment and redesigned the reverse osmosis system. Taiwan Water Resources Agency was the client, with Aecom managing the project. The Kinmen islands used about 23,000 m³/day, of which 12,000 m³/day came from groundwater, and saw below-average rainfall in 2018.
The report showed that refurbishing existing reverse osmosis plants was one way at the time for islands with limited groundwater to gain extra capacity.