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Intelligence › Technology brief

The machines that halved the price of seawater

Between 2018 and 2020 the winning bid for desalinated water nearly halved, to 27.7 cents. The technology stack behind that number, why the record was never financed, and what has happened to prices since.

Technology brief Last reviewed October 2026 ~8 min read
US$ 0.277
per m³, the 2020 record bid at Hassyan. No water was ever produced at this price1
2.27
kWh per m³, verified by Guinness World Records in 2021 at a 5,000 m³/day mobile unit, not a utility-scale plant2
909,218
m³ a day at Taweelah, which its contractor calls the largest reverse-osmosis plant in operation3
US$ 0.73
per m³, Bahrain’s Al-Hidd bid in 2026, still under evaluation in July4

In August 2018 Saudi Arabia took a low bid for Rabigh 3 of about $0.53 per cubic metre, a record at the time.5 Twenty-five months later Dubai took a bid at $0.277.1 6 Nothing in the sea had changed. The machine room and the finance stack had: MEED credited energy efficiency, historically low interest rates, economies of scale and more cost-effective plant configurations.7

The winning price of desalinated water, by year

US$ per cubic metre, quoted levelised water tariff at bid, preferred-bidder or award stage

the race to the bottomand back up again$0.530Rabigh 3 IWP$0.490Taweelah RO IWP$0.277Hassyan IWP (bid never financed)$0.424Jubail 3B IWP$0.365Hassyan IWP (re-award)$0.486Jubail 4 & 6 IWP$0.765Ras Mohaisen IWP$0.00$0.15$0.30$0.45$0.60$0.75$0.9020182019202020212022202320242025awardedbid or preferred bidderlowest price each year$0$0.45$0.902018 · Rabigh 3 IWP$0.5302019 · Shuqaiq 3 IWP$0.5202019 · Taweelah RO IWP$0.4902020 · Jubail 3A IWP$0.4132020 · Hassyan IWP (bidnever financed)$0.2772021 · Jubail 3B IWP$0.4242023 · Mirfa 2 RO IWP$0.4832023 · Rabigh 4 IWP$0.4582023 · Hassyan IWP(re-award)$0.3652024 · Saadiyat RO IWP$0.7312024 · Jubail 4 & 6 IWP$0.4862025 · Ras Mohaisen IWP$0.765
Sources and notes

Procurer announcements and contemporaneous trade reporting. Filled markers are award prices; hollow markers are bid or preferred-bidder prices (hover for the stage and date). Prices are not strictly comparable: they differ in tenor, indexation, power supply and site conditions. They are nonetheless the closest thing the market has to a public price series.

The stack that did it

Membrane technology kept improving.8 Energy recovery mattered too: pressure exchangers use a ceramic rotor to pass the energy in the high-pressure outgoing brine to the incoming seawater, and their manufacturer, Energy Recovery, reports up to 99% peak efficiency for its PX Q650.9 Jubail 3A, a large Saudi plant, uses less than 2.80 kWh per cubic metre on ACWA Power’s figure,10 against about 38 kWh of heat plus 1.5 to 3.5 kWh of electricity per cubic metre for thermal distillation, figures the World Nuclear Association says are not properly comparable.11 SWCC recorded 2.27 in 2021, though at a 5,000 cubic metre a day mobile unit rather than a utility-scale train.2

Scale accounts for another part of the fall, on MEED’s list.7 Taweelah, at 909,218 m³/day, spreads fixed costs across a great deal of water.3 Cheap renewable power mattered too: MEED attributed the lower levelised costs at Taweelah and Hassyan to low-priced renewables.7 In Saudi Arabia, single-buyer procurers award 25-year water purchase agreements through competitive tenders, while Hassyan’s 2023 agreement runs for 30 years; bidders compete on the levelised water tariff.12 13

The record that never produced water

The $0.277 needs an asterisk the publicity never carried. The bid was Hassyan, for DEWA, announced in September 2020,1 at a time MEED described as one of historically low interest rates.7 The contract never reached financial close.14 DEWA re-let the project to ACWA Power at $0.365, about a third higher, for a larger plant of 180 million gallons a day: the 30-year purchase agreement was signed in October 2023 and financial close followed in April 2024.13 15 DEWA commissioned the first 60 million gallons a day of that plant in the first quarter of 2026.16 No water has been produced at the record price.

Where prices went next

MEED warned in 2022 that if interest rates started to rise, tariffs were likely to come under upward pressure.7 By 2026 Gulf prices were nearer $0.73 to $0.77: the lowest bid for Saadiyat was $0.731 in 2024, Ras Mohaisen reached financial close at about $0.765 in 2025, and Bahrain’s Al-Hidd drew a bid of $0.730 in 2026 that was still under evaluation in July.17 18 4 Part of Saadiyat’s higher price reflects a new electrical facility in its scope.19 Since the US-Iran conflict, MEED has reported a forecast of UAE tender price inflation of 6% to 9% in 2026, as fuel, freight and insurance costs feed into contractor pricing.20 That this will push water tariffs up too is our reading, not a reported effect.

What it means commercially

For governments, Hassyan is a reminder that a bid is not a price until it is financed. Egypt and Morocco have adopted the private procurement model for large plants.21 22

In the region

The private procurement model behind these prices has been taken up further west. Morocco’s Casablanca plant, which its developer calls Africa’s largest, is a public-private partnership;22 Egypt has worked with the IFC and EBRD since 2023 to structure a private desalination programme;21 Algeria had five large plants built by domestic companies instead, a programme expected to cost US$2.4 billion.23 The reference projects behind this brief each carry their own page: Taweelah, Hassyan and Jubail 3B, with the parties, the finance and a dated history.

The case study

One case in this sector, examined in full.

Case study

Taweelah: what scale did to the price of seawater

At 909,218 cubic metres a day, the largest reverse-osmosis plant in operation. Its 2019 tariff was a step in a fall that took Gulf desalination bids down by nearly half, from the 2018 Rabigh 3 bid to the 2020 Hassyan bid, which was never financed.

Who is doing this

The buyers and operators behind the procurements this brief describes.

Mandates, procurement routes and the rest of the region’s institutions are in the decision-maker directory.

What to watch

  • Q4 2026Saudi Arabia’s Sharakat plan includes Jubail 4 & 6 (600,000 m³/day), which targeted financial close in Q2 2026, and Shuqaiq 4.12 Each tariff enters the benchmark series when published.
  • 2026Kuwait’s Al-Khairan Phase 1 IWPP, following the Az-Zour North 2 & 3 contract an ACWA Power-led consortium signed in February 2026:24 bids from two consortia, led by TAQA and by ACWA Power, were opened in June 2026,25 with no award announcement identified by September 2026. Tracked on the procurement page.

Further reading

Desalination & Non-Conventional WaterFinance & EconomicsSaudi ArabiaUnited Arab Emirates

Sources

25 references
  1. Government of Dubai Media Office, “DEWA achieves a new world breaking record for lowest water levelised tariff of 0.277 USD per cubic metre”, 3 September 2020.
  2. Guinness World Records, “World’s lowest energy water desalination plant built in Saudi desert”, 24 March 2021: 2.271 kWh/m³ at the Saline Water Conversion Corporation’s (now Saudi Water Authority) 5,000 m³/day ProfMaster mobile unit at Jubail. A small-plant record, not a figure for a utility-scale train.
  3. Cox, “Coxabengoa Group begins commercial operation of the complete Taweelah desalination plant in Abu Dhabi”, 18 March 2024 (contractor’s figures).
  4. MEED, “Frontrunner emerges for Bahrain’s Hidd IWP”, 6 July 2026: a low bid of BHD 0.276 a cubic metre, with the financial bid still under evaluation.
  5. Bryniak, R., “Changing the face of the region’s water industry”, MEED, 22 May 2019 (the Rabigh 3 low bid of about US$0.53).
  6. Quoted levelised tariffs at bid, preferred-bidder or award stage, from procurer announcements and trade reporting (MEED); the full series with stages and sources is on the tariffs & cost benchmarks page.
  7. MEED, “Desalination tariffs and the race to the bottom”, 28 January 2022.
  8. Jones, E. et al. (2019), “The state of desalination and brine production: a global outlook”, Science of the Total Environment 657, 1343–1356, doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.12.076.
  9. Energy Recovery, PX Pressure Exchanger technology, manufacturer’s product page (vendor figures: ceramic rotor; up to 99% peak efficiency for the PX Q650).
  10. ACWA Power, inauguration of the Jubail 3A IWP, 3 June 2023 (developer’s figure: less than 2.80 kWh per cubic metre).
  11. World Nuclear Association, nuclear desalination, which gives thermal and electrical inputs separately and notes the figures are not properly comparable.
  12. Sharakat (Saudi Water Partnership Company), 7 Year Statement 2025–2031 (March 2026): the procurement plan for 53 Saudi water projects with quarter-level milestones.
  13. Saudi Gulf Projects, “DEWA and ACWA Power sign agreements for $914m Hassyan sea water desalination project”, 3 October 2023: 30-year water purchase agreement, US$0.36536/m³, 180 MIGD.
  14. MEED, “Dewa seeks firms for Hassyan water project”, 5 July 2022.
  15. Smart Water Magazine, “DEWA and ACWA Power reach financial close for Hassyan IWP”, 18 April 2024.
  16. DEWA, first-quarter 2026 results, May 2026: Block A of the Hassyan seawater reverse-osmosis plant commissioned, adding 60 MIGD.
  17. MEED, “Acciona submits lowest bid for Saadiyat Island IWP”, July 2024.
  18. Sharakat, announcement of financial close for Ras Mohaisen, 25 December 2025.
  19. MEED, “Acciona receives Saadiyat IWP award letter”, 27 February 2025.
  20. Foreman, C., MEED, “War premium hits Gulf construction costs”, 10 July 2026 (standfirst; full text behind a paywall).
  21. IFC, “IFC-supported partnership to help increase clean water supply in Egypt”, 23 March 2023: IFC and EBRD to advise the Sovereign Fund of Egypt on desalination plants under a PPP model.
  22. Acciona, “Acciona signs financing for the Casablanca desalination plant”, 8 May 2025.
  23. The North Africa Journal, “Algeria opens first of five seawater desalination plants to combat water shortages”, 25 February 2025.
  24. IPP Journal, report on the Az-Zour North phases 2 and 3 contract signature, 11 February 2026.
  25. Zawya, “Kuwait opens bids for Al Khairan Phase 1 IWPP project”, June 2026.

Numbered references are linked from the superscript markers in the text. Figures without a marker come from the sources above as compiled in the site methodology.