ENOWA, the energy, water, and hydrogen subsidiary of Saudi Arabia’s $500 billion giga project NEOM, will build a water desalination plant by 2024, said CEO Peter Terium.
In June 2022, the company had said that the reverse osmosis desalination plant will have a 500,000 cubic metres per day capacity and meet approximately 30 percent of NEOM’s forecasted total water demand.
In addition to producing desalinated water, the project will use the waste brine streams downstream to produce industrial salt, bromine, boron, potassium, gypsum, magnesium and rare metals, the company said.
Terium said that using renewable energy in water desalination will boost the city’s green hydrogen production, which could be exported.
In July 2020, ACWA Power signed an agreement with NEOM and Air Products for a $5 billion venture to produce 650 tonnes per day of green hydrogen powered by renewable energy.