Is renewable-energy desalination technology coming of age in the MENA region?
A big new solar-powered plant turning seawater into drinking water is being built in Morocco. This summer, the green light was given to construct the world's largest renewable energy-driven seawater desalination plant. The project will produce 275,000 m3 of desalinated seawater daily, to supply 150,000 m3 of water for drinking as well as 125,000 m3 for irrigation of 13,600 hectares of farmland near Agadir, a coastal town in western Morocco. The electricity to power the plant will be provided via high-tension wires from the Noor Ouarzazate solar power plant, about 400 kilometers east of Agadir. A back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that it would take nearly 104,000 plants the size of the one being built in Agadir to provide freshwater for everyone on Earth.
Increasing freshwater supplies by using desalination technologies. At present, there are around 21,000 large desalination plants in operation globally, with most of them located in the Middle East. The new Moroccan plant will power the desalination process through arrays of sunlight-concentrating mirrors. However, large desalination plants in oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia, mainly use waste heat generated as a byproduct in oil-fired power plants, which means that energy input is nearly free-of-charge. Gas-rich Qatar has built a number of gas-fired thermal desalination plants and in early 2017 it completed a major seawater desalination plant in Ras Abu Fontas, big enough to supply water to a million people in the capital Doha.
The case for desalination plants powered by renewable energy. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is one of the most water-scarce in the world, as emphasized in the World Bank report “Beyond Scarcity: Water Security in the Middle East and North Africa”, launched during the World Water Week, held in Stockholm, Sweden, on August 27 - 28. Annual available renewable water amounts in the region are estimated at around 1,274 m3 per person, well below the threshold of 1,700 m3 considered the minimum to satisfy essential population needs. Until the recent past, the application of renewable desalination technology has been limited to small capacities in remote locations. Now plants such as the one in Agadir, Morocco, as well as other large solar desalination plants announced elsewhere in the region, may be opening new perspectives, as the business case for renewable-energy-powered desalination technology comes of age.
Resources: Solar Seawater Desalination in the MENA Region | IRENA Technology Brief : Water Desalination Using Renewable Energy | Beyond Scarcity : Water Security in the Middle East and North Africa | A worsening water crisis in North Africa and the Middle East | World Bank calls for tackling MENA water scarcity