200 m3/day solar sea water desalination pilot plant

Abstract

The need to develop an industrial solar sea water desalination system for industrial, urban and rural application was of great interest to the SOLERAS Program. A pilot plant was constructed recently in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, to test and demonstrate the world's first and largest solar sea water desalination pilot plant using the indirect freezing technology for the desalination system with 18 powerful point focus solar collectors to provide energy to the system to produce 200 m 3 /day of fresh potable water. Preliminary results indicated the usefulness of those two new technological applications meeting 75% of the baseline design values. An extensive research and testing program has been set to provide the necessary data and operational history before deciding on further use of this technology on a commercial scale.