Energy efficiency of seawater desalination: GE, Saudi Aramco launch global challenge

GE ecomagination and Aramco Entrepreneurship on Tuesday launched an open global technology challenge to accelerate the development of solutions focused on improving the energy efficiency of seawater desalination. The US $200,000 challenge will be awarded to four winners with a prize of US $50,000 each, and further investments towards commercialisation of the best ideas among all submissions will be considered.
Current desalination techniques are typically very energy intensive: energy consumption can account for up to 70 percent of the desalination costs. The global production of desalinated water uses approximately 75.2 terawatt-hours of electricity per year, enough to power nearly 7 million homes. The goal of this challenge is to identify novel ways to lower these costs around the world, either through technology advances, process improvements, or both.
Nabil Al-Khowaiter, Aramco Entrepreneurship's Director of Special Projects, stated that "Finding a more efficient method of desalinating seawater will be a game-changer in our collective pursuit of a more sustainable energy future across the globe. Due to increased water scarcity, countries around the world are poised to rely more and more heavily on desalination as a means to provide fresh water. With current techniques, this increased reliance could contribute dramatically to increased energy use.-PR