Thanks to improved technology, smart engineering and innovative financing, desalination plants are springing up everywhere. The market for water desalination has witnessed a significant upturn during the last years. Driven by the increasing world population and the diminishing freshwater sources, a result of global warming, desertation and environment destruction, many countries in the world have constructed or are constructing water desalination plants for water supply. Meanwhile the technological innovations have been largely raising the energy efficiency of the desalination process and reducing the running costs, which are always the key concern for the large-scale water desalination. Especially, the innovations in energy utilization, such as solar energy and terrestrial heat, the advances of nanotechnology and molecular technologies have been elevating the outcome efficiency so largely that the desalination is really becoming a realistic solution for the water shortage in many parts of the world. It is predicted that this fast development is going to last and even accelerate for at least the next ten years. Dramatic increase is expected in Asia mainly China, in new technologies and small systems applications.

Divided by regions, Middle East still takes over 50% of the market share, followed by Asia-Pacific, where economic boom, urbanization, population growth and environment deterioration make the municipalities and industrials eager to search for new water sources. These two regions are going to remain the leading forces for the global markets. America and Europe share about 10% of the market respectively. The construction there is mainly for the purpose of reducing the use of groundwater or adding alternative water sources.

The traditional dominating technology MSF (Multiple Stage Flash) is continuing to lose its share to RO (Reverse Osmosis) and MED (Multi-effect Distillation), due to the improvement of membrane technologies and the cost advantage. Other innovations, mainly focused on reducing the costs and raising the efficiency, are also entering the market in fast paces. The establishment of the first hybrid plant, Fujairah plant, in the United Arab Emirates in 2004 is just an example.

Global Energies Inc.