Worldwide, more and more people are obtaining their drinking water either from the sea or from increasingly salty inland sources. Analysts at Global Water Intelligence, an industry service, estimate that in 2008, desalination facilities around the world produced nearly 52 million cubic meters of water each day – the equivalent of four or five times the daily production of water in Germany. This amount is expected to more than double by the year 2016.
The bulk of this amount is attributable to the Arab countries around the Persian Gulf. Spain ranks fourth worldwide, while other European countries are increasingly turning to desalination as well, including France, Greece and Italy. The goal: To secure the water supply for islands, settlements or entire cities, to supply water to tourist resorts, or to irrigate farmland.
How renewable energies can be used more effectively in the future to transform salty seawater and brackish water into drinking water is the subject of a current study named “ProDes Roadmap” issued by an EU Intelligent Energy initiative led by WIP Munich named “ProDes” (Promotion of Renewable Energy for Water Production through Desalination). The German based Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE), who directed the study, is a member of ProDes and it's representative Marcel Wieghaus states: “The more remote the location, the more worthwhile and profitable it is to use plant systems run on renewable energy and to set up a water treatment operation that is not dependent on an external energy supply”. Together with his team of researchers, he has installed solar-powered desalination plants on the Canary Islands of Gran Canaria and Tenerife.
Energy Union also promotes the use of Intelligent Energy!
