The Taweelah Independent Water Plant. (PHOTO: Power China)

By Staff Reporters

Through cooperation with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China has shared its technology and experience in seawater desalination with partners in arid regions around the world, providing abundant freshwater to local households.

One flagship project is the Taweelah Independent Water Plant (IWP) in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Contracted by Power China in 2019 and connected to the grid at the end of 2021, it is the world's largest operational membrane-driven desalination plant.

Applying the world's advanced reverse osmosis (RO) technology, the plant has an unprecedented capacity of 909,000 m3 per day, and can meet the water demand of nearly one million local households under full load, according to Power China.

The UAE faces high water stress due to its hot weather and large demand, with an average daily water consumption per capita of over seven cubic meters. The UAE's fresh water supply mainly relies on groundwater and desalination. However, long-term large-scale exploitation of groundwater will seriously degrade the water quality and cause salinization, posing a threat to the local agricultural and ecological environment. Thus, the seawater desalination plant is an important facility for social welfare.

Apart from providing freshwater, the seawater RO plant features a 50MW on-site solar PV power generation facility to complement the energy supply from the grid. The PV power plant is expected to meet 30 percent of the plant's electricity demand in the first eight years, with a target of increasing solar energy's share to 55 percent by the end of the first quarter-life of the project.

At the 2023 Global Water Summit, the Taweelah IWP won the Global Water Awards –Desalination Plant of the Year 2023, for its contribution to people's livelihoods and local economic and social development in the UAE.