It is no secret that water from desalination provides the lifeblood for many countries in the Middle East – Saudi Arabia chief among them. About a year ago, the country opened its 28th desalination facility, the Jubail II, which produces 800,000 m3 per day. While desalination provides a solution for the region’s water needs – at least it’s domestic and industrial water needs – only some countries, such as Saudi Arabia with its vast oil reserves, have the energy resources to sustain these facilities. However, even these abundant energy sources are finite – and indeed peaking in terms of production – and will not long provide the cheap power necessary to run desal plants. The situation will only become more acute as more desalination plants are constructed.

The combination of renewable power, particularly solar power in the sundrenched Middle East, and desalination may prove the perfect symbiotic relationship. Solar power’s detractors have noted that its intermittency, demand for large expanses and cost all make it ill-suited for conventional electricity generation. However, desalination plants don’t necessarily require high capacity power, as the product water is easily stored. Furthermore, the Middle East is replete with large empty tracts of high insolation land. The last barrier, cost, is also eroding as PV prices tumble globally; cost is now also one of the major focuses of The Middle East Desalination Research Center (MEDRC).

Even so, concentrated solar power (CSP) – a form of solar energy generation that uses mirrors to focus the sun’s rays and create heat – is emerging as the most alluring renewable power solution for desal in the bright Middle East. Tunisia water utility SONEDE is considering solar power for a series of small brackish water desalination plants in its southern provinces, while Morocco’s bulk water provider Office National de l’Eau Potable (ONEP) has ambitious plans to build a 9,000 m3/d pilot desalination/CSP plant in Tan Tan in the south of the country. As discussed (see April 22, 2010 LRWJ – client registration required) Saudi Arabia is also actively pursuing the use of CSP to power a 30,000 m3/d desalination in conjunction with IBM. In short, new opportunities are arising in sundrenched but water poor regions of the world, even as CSP and renewables in general face new hurdles in developed nations and debt-ridden sovereigns pull back on generous subsidies.

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