The desalination of seawater by reverse osmosis – technology that would be used in the new installation in Barcelona – is fully developed and there are thousands of plants in operation all over the world (two in Catalonia). There are also smaller capacity desalination plants in a portable format, some installed on ships or barges. A recent example of portable desalination plants in Spain were those installed in La Palma (Canary Islands) to recover the water supply – in this case, only for irrigation – in areas affected by the volcanic eruption of 2021 However, very few floating desalination plants of a large capacity or similar to the one announced by the minister (40,000 m3 of drinking water per day) have been put into operation.
The most well-known comparable example is the floating desalination plant (installed on a barge) put into service in January 2022 in the port of Al-Xuqaiq (Saudi Arabia). This plant is known as Metito 1, in reference to the company (Metito Overseas Ltd., Metito Group) based in Dubai in charge of construction and operation. Metito 1 is, in fact, the first of three floating desalination plants commissioned by Bahri, Saudi Arabia’s national shipping and logistics company, in collaboration with Saline Water Conversion Corp. One of the requirements of the project is the mobility of the barges, which can be moved, when necessary, to the areas of the country with the greatest need for water. The Metito 1 desalination plant has a production capacity of 50,000 m3 of water per day and works “using the
most advanced treatment technology, the integrated ultrafiltration”, he emphasizes
the construction company
day.
