Design work on the world’s first subsea desalination plant has commenced at Rosenberg Worley in Stavanger, Norway. Utilizing its expertise within subsea engineering and fabrication, the team is developing a cost-efficient solution for modularization, installation and operation.
The design contract award signifies Rosenberg Worley’s entry into an important and growing sustainable global market segment. It also offers the possibility for a broad set of scalable deliveries to a global marketplace.
Waterise’s desalination concept has the potential to meet increasing demand for clean freshwater around the world. It provides a deep-water solution using an energy-efficient reverse osmosis filtration process. Each plant subsea module is expected to produce approximately 50,000 m3 of fresh water per day; that’s enough to support a mid-to-large size city. It is environmentally friendly, too. It has a minimal impact on the local marine ecosystem and removes reliance on scarce coastal land areas.
“Providing clean fresh water to communities around the world shouldn’t be an issue. But it is, as the demands for this most basic need increases,” said Bradley Andrews, president of UNCE, Worley. “We’re committed to delivering a more sustainable world and we look forward to helping Waterise achieve its ambitions to bring subsea desalination technology to market at scale.”
Niels Petter Wright, CEO of Waterise AS, added: "The collaboration with Worley marks an important milestone for Waterise. We’re now taking our technology into the first full-scale plant. Worley will be an important strategic partner for Waterise based on its competence and capacity in both subsea operation systems as well as desalination.”
