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Water Desalination
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Desalination is key to delivering potable water supply to the countries of the Gulf.
Addressing water scarcity with sustainable desalination Martin Clark reports on driving down costs and boosting decarbonisation in desalination.
Our analysis shows that the water demand gap will quintuple by 2050, from today’s 42 cubic kilometres per annum to approximately 200 cubic kilometres per annum.
ESALINATION HAS LONG played an important role in delivering potable water supply to the countries of the Gulf. But it is not a perfect process, of course, utilising potentially harmful chemicals as well as being hugely energy intensive. The decarbonisation of desalination has therefore become a driving thread among developers of new projects, prompting innovation and ingenuity. This is especially important in Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest producer of desalinated water. A sign of the times, the new Jubail 3B desalination plant to be built by SEPCOIII and Acciona in Saudi Arabia will utilise energy from its own stateoftheart solar power plant. The 570,000 cu/m a day desalination facility will eventually supply two million people across the cities of Riyadh and Qassim. Acciona and its partner are the main contractors on the US$692mn project, which is to be developed and financed by a
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Technical Review Middle East - Issue One 2022
consortium of investors that includes Engie and AJLAN, for the publiclyowned Saudi Water Partnership Company (SWCP). The project includes its own solar energy plant to reduce the consumption of electricity from the national grid, with Acciona to build the photovoltaic plant, plus the construction of 58 km of power lines, an electricity substation, and associated marine works. The new desalination plant is expected to come on stream in the first quarter of 2024. It continues a flurry of new desalination projects awarded in recent times, with Acciona of Spain securing plenty of additional work. That includes a €460mn (US$521mn) turnkey contract for the Al Khobar RO2 plant in Khobar, around 400 km from Riyadh. This facility will have a capacity of just over 630,000 cu/m a day, making it one of the biggest in Saudi Arabia and the largest reverse osmosis plant in the world built under the EPC (engineering procurement and www.technicalreview.me
