The Global Clean Water Desalination Alliance, initiated by UAE’s Masdar, has been launched at COP21, marking a start of a program seeking possible solutions to the water-energy nexus, Gulf News reported.
“Water and energy are very interlinked, and this association is the first to address that connection. Back home in Abu Dhabi, we launched the pilot [project] during innovation week where, in collaboration with four companies, we will hopefully create a technology that reduces energy consumption of water desalination by 40 %,” Masdar’s CEO, Dr Ahmad Belhoul, told Gulf News at the inauguration.
On the sidelines, Dubai Electricity and Water Authority’s (DEWA) CEO, Saeed Mohammad Al Tayer, said that Dubai relied on desalinated water for up to 99 %, and operated some of the largest desalination plants that were already using 75 % of renewable energy sources.
At the COP21 conference, DEWA was successfully showcasing its current and future programs related to energy efficiency, Zawya informed.
The Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, one of the biggest strategic projects based on the Independent Power Producer (IPP) concept, attracted attention over its designed future production of 1,000MW of electricity by 2020, and 5,000MW by 2030.
