Design begins for world’s first subsea desalination plant

Design work on the world’s first subsea desalination plant has commenced in Stavanger, Norway. Water company Waterise has recently awarded a contract to Rosenberg Worley, a group specializing in subsea engineering and fabrication, to develop a cost-efficient solution for the plant’s modularization, installation, and operation.

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 13 millions gallons of fresh water per day — enough to support a mid-to-large size city. It also has a minimal impact on the local marine ecosystem and removes reliance on scarce coastal land areas.

“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,” says Niels Petter Wright, CEO of Waterise AS.