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Dubai seeking to utilise geothermal for desalination of sea water

Dubai seeking to utilise geothermal for desalination of sea water Dubai Skyline March 2016 (source: flickr/ Martin Lewison, creative commons)
Alexander Richter 3 Aug 2016

Dubai is exploring the feasibility of utilising geothermal energy for power generation, but also - and more likely - for the use in desalination plants that remove salt from water.

In June we reported on a new request for proposals from the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) on early-stage feasibility studies on electricity generation from geothermal and its use in desalination.

Now details emerge on the Authority’s thoughts with regards to the possibility using geothermal energy for desalination.

Steve Griffiths, the vice president for research at Abu Dhabi’s Masdar Institute, which has been studying the potential for geothermal in the UAE, said that using this kind of energy for desalination was the most viable option, as the GCC’s geothermal resources were only suitable for low-temperature applications, averaging about 100°C.

“It could be viable – the details will need to be worked out, but if there’s a tender for geothermal-based desalination, it’s not insane,” Mr Griffiths said, adding that the attractiveness resulted from the UAE’s efforts to “decouple power and water systems”.

“So it could be running as a stand-alone water desalination application, which could be cost-competitive with [other conventional approaches] such as reverse osmosis,” he said.

Source: The National