UAE project launched to extract water from the atmosphere with solar energy

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) will test this month an innovative pilot project with a new technology to produce commercial volumes of water by extracting it from the atmosphere using only solar energy, officials said Sunday.

In a joint statement, officials said the initiative will use technology from US-based Aquovum to generate water from atmospheric moisture, which is particularly useful in arid environments such as the UAE, and will be the first to use a completely renewable energy source to do so.

The project will be carried out in the emirate of Abu Dhabi by Aquovum, the Khalifa University of Science and Technology, and Masdar, a technology company dedicated to the development of renewable energies promoted by the Abu Dhabi government.

This will assess "the performance of the Atmospheric Water Generation technology in a large format in combination with a renewable energy source, and its ability to be included in current or future sustainable water projects," the release said.

The officials did not indicate how much water they plan to 'produce' using this technology, but said they would contribute to a market 'expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 25 % worldwide and 30 % in the Middle East'.

"To advance the global green transition and to ensure water security, we believe we need to use 100 per cent renewable energy in our systems to provide a truly sustainable water supply," said Aquovum's chief technology officer, Robert Wood, in the statement.