In a region with serious water shortages, the demand for desalinated water is growing in response to climate change and an increasing population. Saudi Arabia, a country with a population of around 33.4 million, is the third biggest consumer of water per capita in the world, after the United States and Canada. The country has implemented a series of measures to rationalize water consumption as part of its Vision 2030 program, with the aim of reducing consumption by up to 43% by the end of this decade. 

At ACCIONA, we work to help  achieve this objective and design a better planet through the mechanisms which make us leaders and pioneers in the sustainable desalination sector. We only carry out water desalination by reverse osmosis — the best desalination technology for providing fresh water in water stressed areas and for promoting a decarbonised economy.

In fact, using reverse osmosis involves 6.5 times less CO2 emissions than conventional desalination technologies in the Middle East and Africa. And as technology evolves and optimises the efficiency and performance of desalination plants, more and more people have fresh water. We have built desalination plants capable of treating about 4.6 million m3/day, sufficient to supply a population of about 25 million people.