A renewable energy company in Abu Dhabi is turning its attention to finding cost-effective ways to remove the salt from seawater, using renewable energy technologies such as solar power. There is a huge need for desalination in the Gulf, the world's driest region and home to a rapidly growing population.
In the largely desert territories of the Gulf and other parts of the Middle East, drinking water is mostly supplied from industrial processes including chemical treatments, thermal distillation and filtration by reverse osmosis. These are all highly energy-intensive - and burn up large quantities of oil or gas, the lifeblood of the region's economy.
Because of the steep up-front investments that they have so far required and the high cost per unit of power generated, renewable energy technologies have not been a popular alternative option for producing potable water, in the Gulf. But advances in technology and a steady decline in manufacturing costs for solar generating plants may be about to change that picture.
With financial backing from Abu Dhabi's investment arm, the company says it plans to build three pilot plants in the next three to four years, sited in different areas of Abu Dhabi, to test innovative technologies and figure out if they have potential for large scale use.
Part of the programme will focus on a variant of semi-permeable membrane filtration technology known as forward osmosis, according to the company.
Other innovative technologies to be tested will include electrodialysis deionisation, membrane distillation and low-temperature distillation, while the programme also aims to explore the potential for cost reductions and improvements in the energy intensity and efficiency of established technologies such as reverse osmosis.
The long-term goal of the initiative is to have a facility operating at commercial scale by 2020.
Middle Eastern and North African countries are home to 6.3 per cent of the world's population, but the region contains only 1.4 per cent of the world's fresh water. The Gulf region has the highest water scarcity levels in the world, according to data compiled by the World Bank.
With limited surface water and depleting ground water resources, desalination is the key to meeting the inexorable rise in demand for water resulting from economic growth and expanding populations. Energy needed for desalination is usually generated by fossil fuels.
A few other projects in the region also have started to explore the use of renewable energy sources to produce drinking water, but they are costly, and mostly still at the early testing stage
In the largely desert territories of the Gulf and other parts of the Middle East, drinking water is mostly supplied from industrial processes including chemical treatments, thermal distillation and filtration by reverse osmosis. These are all highly energy-intensive - and burn up large quantities of oil or gas, the lifeblood of the region's economy.
Because of the steep up-front investments that they have so far required and the high cost per unit of power generated, renewable energy technologies have not been a popular alternative option for producing potable water, in the Gulf. But advances in technology and a steady decline in manufacturing costs for solar generating plants may be about to change that picture.
With financial backing from Abu Dhabi's investment arm, the company says it plans to build three pilot plants in the next three to four years, sited in different areas of Abu Dhabi, to test innovative technologies and figure out if they have potential for large scale use.
Part of the programme will focus on a variant of semi-permeable membrane filtration technology known as forward osmosis, according to the company.
Other innovative technologies to be tested will include electrodialysis deionisation, membrane distillation and low-temperature distillation, while the programme also aims to explore the potential for cost reductions and improvements in the energy intensity and efficiency of established technologies such as reverse osmosis.
The long-term goal of the initiative is to have a facility operating at commercial scale by 2020.
Middle Eastern and North African countries are home to 6.3 per cent of the world's population, but the region contains only 1.4 per cent of the world's fresh water. The Gulf region has the highest water scarcity levels in the world, according to data compiled by the World Bank.
With limited surface water and depleting ground water resources, desalination is the key to meeting the inexorable rise in demand for water resulting from economic growth and expanding populations. Energy needed for desalination is usually generated by fossil fuels.
A few other projects in the region also have started to explore the use of renewable energy sources to produce drinking water, but they are costly, and mostly still at the early testing stage