GE, Saudi Aramco launch global innovation challenge

MANILA, Philippines - GE ecomagination and Aramco Entrepreneurship launched an open global technology challenge to accelerate the development of solutions focused on improving the energy efficiency of seawater desalination. The $200,000 challenge will be awarded to four winners with a prize of $50,000 each, and further investments towards commercialization of the best ideas among all submissions will be considered.

Current desalination techniques are typically very energy intensive: energy consumption can account for up to 70 percent of the desalination costs. The global production of desalinated water uses approximately 75.2 terawatt-hours of electricity per year, enough to power nearly seven million homes. The goal of this challenge is to identify novel ways to lower these costs around the world, either through technology advances, process improvements, or both. 

Nabil Al-Khowaiter, Aramco Entrepreneurship’s director of Special Projects, stated that “finding a more efficient method of desalinating seawater will be a game-changer in our collective pursuit of a more sustainable energy future across the globe. Due to increased water scarcity, countries around the world are poised to rely more and more heavily on desalination as a means to provide fresh water. With current techniques, this increased reliance could contribute dramatically to increased energy use.  Aramco Entrepreneurship is partnering with GE not only to identify new solutions to lowering desalination costs, but also to invest in and attract new technologies and industries to Saudi Arabia.”

Deb Frodl, GE’s global executive director, ecomagination said, “GE ecomagination is investing to speed up the development of more sustainable solutions for water desalination. Through this challenge, we hope to inspire scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and innovators around the world to bring their talents to this effort and help drive greater outcomes for customers.”

Entries are being immediately accepted at www.ninesights.com/community/ecomagination. The deadline to submit entries is July 16, 2014, and winners will be announced in November 2014.