Renewables to power West Africa's largest water desalination plant

From the newsletter

Senegal has partnered with Saudi-based ACWA Power, a leading company in energy transition and water desalination, to develop West Africa's largest water desalination plant to be powered by renewables. The project is expected to cost $800 million and will be delivered in two phases. Full commercial operations are expected by 2031.

• The Grande-Côte Project will get its green electricity from SENELEC, Senegal's national utility company. It will be one of the few large-scale desalination plants globally to run completely on renewable energy.

• Renewables continue their march to conquer traditional industries in Africa, including mining. Greater reliability with the addition of battery storage now meets baseload demand.

More details

• The Senegalese project is expected to reach financial close by 2026. The project will be built in two phases, each providing 200,000 m³/day of desalinated water. It will be built through a public-private partnership (PPP). There is a growing number of instances where the PPP framework is being used by many African governments due to lack of capital to undertake major infrastructure projects.

• Water desalination is an energy-intensive process and has a high energy appetite. Using typical reverse osmosis consumption rates of 3 to 5.5 kilowatt-hours per cubic metre, the Grande-Côte plant is projected to consume between 1.2 to 2.2 gigawatt-hours of electricity per day. That is equivalent to a 50-92 MW plant supplying electricity 24 hours a day. For renewables, however, this has to be designed with extra capacity to ensure their intermittency does not affect plant operation.

• The demand for water across Africa is surging. Rapid urbanisation is seeing millions flock to cities, putting immense pressure on already strained water sources and often outdated infrastructure. Projections indicate a significant increase in urban water demand by 2050, with many African cities already experiencing water stress. Desalination offers a viable, drought-proof solution, and its adoption is accelerating across the continent.

• Many African countries, especially those with coastlines, are exploring this technology to meet their pressing water demands. Morocco and Egypt in the North lead the way. Morocco is building a plant that is set to be the largest in the world, powered entirely by renewables. It will have a production capacity of 822,000 m³/day and will be powered by 360 MW from wind power. Egypt has built the Marsa Alam solar-powered desalination plant, which operates at a capacity of 300 m³/day. It supplies water at a price 25% below the market standard. In the South, Namibia has a fully solar-powered desalination system, capable of producing 3,500 litres/hour.

• Senegal has set an ambitious target of achieving 40% renewable energy in its mix by 2030 and plans a 70% increase in its total generation capacity. Several projects are under development, including the 60 MW solar plant being built by Axian Energy, which started construction in June. Another 300 MW of solar is set to be constructed with support from the UAE government. Investments to modernise the transmission and distribution infrastructure to effectively integrate the growing renewable energy capacity is happening, with 4,000 km under development.

• The declining cost of renewables is making them favourable among energy sources. Several industrial customers and other heavy energy-intensive sectors like data centres, mining, and water desalination are adopting them. Some, like the Kamoa Copper mines in the DR Congo, are even planning to have renewables meet their baseload demand. Data centres are also using renewables with batteries to meet a share of their baseload demand.

Our take

• The opportunities for renewable energy application keep expanding. Its growing reliability means it can power critical sectors with guaranteed stored power from batteries, and this could help many companies save on carbon tax, which is likely to be adopted by many countries in the future.

• African countries with less freshwater and expansive coastlines have less to worry about. Renewables can provide desalinated water at competitive rates, even cheaper than other sources, and could solve the crises expected to hit such countries as Egypt, Morocco, South Africa, and Nigeria.

• African countries can scale up these operations to provide sufficient water for their populations and for hydrogen production. The revenue generated from exporting hydrogen could then be reinvested in improving water and power infrastructure.