GE and Saudi Aramco launch global innovation challenge to find renewable energy solutions for seawater desalination

Dammam, Saudi Arabia; April 15, 2014: GE ecomagination and Aramco Entrepreneurship, today launched an open global technology challenge to accelerate the development of solutions focused on improving energy efficiency of seawater desalination. The US$200,000 challenge will be awarded to four winners at a prize of US$50,000 each, and further investments towards commercialization of the best ideas amongst all submissions will be considered.

Current desalination techniques are typically very energy intensive: energy consumption can account for up to 70 per cent of the desalination costs. The global production of desalinated water uses approximately 75.2 terawatt-hours of electricity per year, enough to power nearly 7 million homes. The goal of this challenge is to identify novel ways to lower these costs around the world, either through technology advances, process improvements, or both.

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Taxonomy

• Water Supply
• Energy Reduction
• Reverse Osmosis
• Energy Efficiency