Bringing clean drinking water to the world

According to UNICEF, more than 600 million people worldwide lack access to clean drinking water. In large parts of the world, desalinated seawater is the only available source of fresh water. Until now, however, desalination has taken place on land and has been costly, energy-intensive and polluting.

Using Norwegian oil and gas technology, Waterise has developed a new and sustainable method. According to the company's CEO, Niels Petter Wright, its standard module will be able to produce 50,000 cubic metres of clean water per day. That is enough to meet the needs of around 250,000 people.

‘At the same time, global demand for desalinated water is expected to increase by more than 70 million cubic metres per day. This represents a significant market opportunity, and now is an excellent time to enter the market with new technology,’ says Wright.

'Norwegian offshore technology will eventually need new applications. Waterise has recognised this and seized the opportunity. The result is well on its way to becoming a revolutionary improvement to the world's most widely used desalination technology. This will make drinking water production more affordable, less energy-intensive and more environmentally friendly,' says Bjørn Aage Seem Holmen, our senior adviser and client manager for Waterise.

For years, many have tried to find a way to move the process underwater and save energy by using hydrostatic pressure – the pressure exerted by the water – as an energy source. But no one had developed a working solution – until now.

‘It started with four highly experienced engineers who had worked in either the oil and gas industry or supplier companies, and who had been familiar with and worked with subsea technology throughout their careers. We have since brought on board skilled engineers from the desalination industry who can combine technologies from the two sectors,’ says Wright.

‘We haven't actually had to develop any fundamentally new technology to do this. We use standard technology that is currently deployed on land, but place it on the seabed, enabling us to reduce costs and improve the technology,’ the CEO explains.

In addition to saving energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the subsea technology also protects the environment in other ways. Onshore facilities discharge highly concentrated salt water, which harms the surrounding environment on land. Releasing the salt water along the seabed avoids this problem.

From the summer of 2018, the four engineers explored different ways to use Norwegian oil and gas technology to produce water. Later that autumn, they submitted a patent application, which was approved.

After securing its first investors, the company decided to build a demonstration rig to show that the patent worked.

We also provided a grant through the Environmental Technology Scheme to build the rig and carry out testing. The demonstration took place in Boknafjorden, near Stavanger, in summer 2020.

According to Senior Adviser Holmen, Waterise's single-module testing showed that all components work in natural conditions. This has significantly reduced the technical risk associated with the first commercial facility.

'Waterise may well hold the key to meeting the ever-growing demand for clean water sustainably. If the company succeeds in commercialising its technology, it will also create many profitable, resilient, highly skilled jobs in Norway – in a free market without subsidies. Companies like this are rare,' says Holmen.

Waterise has also received grants from us for commercialisation activities leading up to its first full-scale facility. This work has focused primarily on assessing the market and identifying potential customers.

Like most other companies, Waterise has also been affected by the restrictions imposed during the pandemic.

‘We are now looking forward to the vaccine becoming available so that we can travel again. Our first projects will probably be in the Red Sea (Saudi Arabia and Egypt), and we cannot hold commercial meetings or carry out technical operations unless we can get vaccinated and provide proof of vaccination. So in that respect, we are currently in a challenging situation,’ says Wright.