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