Dubai, the largest city of the United Arab Emirates, where water shortages are a huge concern, will look for partners to construct the first solar-powered desalination plant in an attempt to branch out from burning fossil fuels to increment its water supply, reported Bloomberg.
During an interview in Dubai, Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, Managing Director and CEO of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) said that the reverse osmosis desalination plant will have capacity to produce 454,000 cubic meters a day of drinkable water by 2024.
In the World Government Summit, the company announced that it is also establishing a reservoir to hold up to 23 million cubic meters of water reserves, and the utility currently stores around 2 million cubic meters.
The UAE must desalinate seawater to supply drinking water to its growing population.
Countries like Australia, Italy and Egypt are already using solar-powered desalination units to produce potable water, a method which reduces power use and improves efficiency.
DEWA’s new solar-powered facility will store energy that it produces, meaning that it will also run at night.
