Ambata Capital Middle East is planning to invest USD 250 million in a multiple-effect distillation (MED) plant using geothermal energy in either UAE or Saudi Arabia, a top company official told Zawya in an exclusive interview.
"The medium-size plant, producing 50,000 cubic meters [50 million liters] of potable water per day, will be operational in three years' time, once the agreement is signed," said Daniel Zywietz, managing director of Ambata Capital Middle East - a global investment and advisory firm specializing in clean energy and sustainability, with a focus on the Middle East and Africa.
"By 2018, we will have a MED plant fully commissioned and running either in Abu Dhabi, Ras Al Khaimah or Saudi Arabia. We are in discussions with government-related entities for locations. If we opt to set up the plant in Saudi Arabia, the Saudi government will invest in the project. But if we go for the northern emirates, then we will be investing," he disclosed.
"There is a lot of potential geothermal energy in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and Yemen, for instance, have volcanoes, while Jordan has hot springs. In this region, it is very hot underground and oil coming from the earth reaches temperatures between 90 °C and 130 °C," said Zywietz, who is also chief executive officer of Ambata's partners Enerwhere, a Dubai-based provider of solar-diesel hybrid energy solutions, and Reykjavik Geothermal, an Icelandic company that helped build power plants in more than 30 countries.
"In some cases, a MED plant can work at 65 °C like in Fujairah F2 water and power plant project. We have two wells in Masdar City, where the temperatures reach between 80 °C and 90 °C, while in the northern emirates and western Abu Dhabi, it can go up to 110 °C," he explained.
"We are currently discussing with Masdar to create a map of geothermal resources within the UAE. We have already done the same with Saudi Aramco," he said adding that global geothermal potential is largely untapped with less than 1% of the world's geothermal resources being utilized.
© Zawya 2013
