Saudi Arabia has unveiled a plan to develop new water desalination plants that draw on solar power. Proposed by the National Science Agency of Saudi Arabia, the plan sees renewable energy-based desalination sites achieving a number of aims. These include generally lowering greenhouse gas emissions to mitigate environmental damage, and lowering associated local energy and water costs by 40 per cent.

“Desalination is our strategic choice to supply an adequate amount of drinking water to people across the Kingdom”, Ibrahim Al-Assaf, Saudi Finance Minister, stated. He added that Saudi Arabia would look towards exporting unneeded renewable energy produced by the plants, in the same way that the country currently exports oil.

Desalination Plants: Solar Power

With multiple desalination plants already in place, Saudi Arabia’s present oil consumption rate runs to approximately 1,500,000 barrels-a-day, but the cost linked to this can be cut significantly by drawing on solar power, the Saudi Minister of Water and Electricity, Abdullah Al Hussayen, said. “There has been no breakthrough in the cost of desalination”, he added. “The gradual reduction in cost due to improvement in technology has been mostly offset by increased material and labour cost.”

Officials hope that – as a result of developing these solar-powered desalination centres – Saudi Arabia joins the top level of renewable energy-producing nations. “Saudi Arabia aspires to export as much solar energy in the future as it exports oil now”, Ali Al-Naimi – Saudi Petroleum and Mineral Resources Minister – asserted.

Solar Desalination

The solar desalination sites will be created incrementally. To begin with, a small-scale plant with a daily water output of 30,000 cubic metres (about 850,000 cubic metres less than the output from the fossil fuel-powered Shoaiba 3 – the largest desalination site on the planet) will be assembled. Next will be a plant capable of producing 100,000 cubic metres on a daily basis – leading up to a whole fleet of sites geographically dispersed so they cover all of Saudi Arabia.

According to data issued by the World Bank, in 2005, Saudi Arabia produced 16.5 tons of CO2 emissions per capita. This put it among the world’s highest polluters in per capita terms, with Australia – by way of contrast – topping that year’s leader board, producing over 25 tons of carbon dioxide for every person living there.