When Saudi Arabia, a major oil producing country, turns to the sun to solve energy problems; the world should definitely sit up and take notice.
Like Australia, Saudi Arabia faces a water crunch and also as in our own country, desalination of sea water offers some solutions.
In fact, Saudi Arabia leads the world when it comes to desalination, producing more than 18% of the world’s desalinated water. One of the big remaining challenges of desalination however is energy intensity and cost. Desalinated water from plants powered by fossil fuel – whether it’s oil or coal – is carbon emissions intensive water.
Saudi Arabia enjoys a high level of sunshine, estimated at two thousand kilowatts per square meter per year and King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, (KACST) has been working for some time on research and development to harness the abundance of solar energy to provide power for desalination.
The organisation aims to desalinate seawater at a cost of less than 1.5 Saudi Riyals (around AUD 45 cents) per cubic meter compared to the current cost in the range 2.5 to 5.5 Saudi Riyals per cubic meter. The group says the cost to generate electricity by solar panels will be less than 30 Halalah per kilowatt-hour; around 9 Australian cents.
Construction on a desalination plant with a capacity of thirty thousand cubic meters per day, sufficient to meet the needs of one hundred thousand people, along with a solar farm with a capacity of 10 megawatts to power it began in January. The next phase will be the construction of a solar powered desalination plant with a production capacity of three hundred thousand cubic meters per day, followed by several desalination plants using solar energy in various locations of Saudia Arabia.
