Saudi Water Authority

The Saudi Water Authority (SWA) is a Saudi Arabian government authority responsible for regulating and monitoring water sector business and services to enhance water sustainability across the Kingdom.

The Saudi Water Authority (SWA) was formerly the Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) until March 2024, when a session of the Council of Ministers of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, headed by the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, agreed to change the name to the Saudi Water Authority (SWA), officially approving its objectives and roles as the Kingdom’s regulatory authority for the water sector. This was formally announced on 07 May 2024.

SWA has a supervisory and strategic role in regulating and overseeing the water sector of Saudi Arabia and is also responsible for developing new policies, strategies, programs, and initiatives, instituting necessary control and requirements for water sector licenses related to developing human capacity, developing technical and engineering standards for the water industry, and ensuring its alignment with the standing Saudi benchmarks for local content and sustainability.

Prior to its name and mandate change, SWA was known as Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC), a government corporation that operated desalination plants and power stations in Saudi Arabia. SWCC was established in Saudi Arabia in 1974 as "Water Desalination for Salty".

History
SWA (SWCC) originated from Water Desalination for Salty office in the Ministry of Agriculture and Water, established in 1966 to enhance water security in the Kingdom and provide water for the needs of the population and the agricultural sector, as Saudi Arabia's climate is one of the harshest and driest in the world.

It was led by Prince Muhammad Al-Faisal, who held expertise in seawater technology.

Water Desalination for Salty was transformed into the Agency for Desalination Affairs within the Ministry of Agriculture and Water in 1972.

On September 6, 1974, the Council of Ministers established an independent water desalination corporation, administratively affiliated with the Minister of Agriculture and Water, and appointed its head by royal order. It primarily focused on improving the natural water resources by desalinating saline water in regions of the Kingdom where natural resources were insufficient to meet their needs, utilising water resources of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. SWCC was given the authority to produce electrical energy independently when necessary.

In the early stages, SWCC adopted Multi-Stage Flash (MSF) distillation as the primary technology, later switching to Multi-Effect Distillation (MED). After that, SWCC switched to Reverse Osmosis (RO), and as of 2024, RO is the primary technology used by SWCC in its desalination plants.

In its early years, the SWCC focused on building its first desalination plants. The first plant was built in the city of Jeddah on the Red Sea coast. Using MSF distillation, the plant began producing desalinated water for the city's residents. SWCC invested in research and development and collaborated with international partners and academic institutions to improve the efficiency of its desalination processes, as the initial desalination process was energy-intensive and produced a significant amount of brine, a highly concentrated saline solution that had to be disposed of carefully to avoid environmental harm.

In 1978, SWCC launched the operation of reverse osmosis plants in Jeddah. The company also assumed full responsibility for operating and maintaining its plants and pipelines.

In 1983, SWCC commissioned the Jubail-Riyadh water transmission system.

In 2008, the company started the operation of barges, launching the first floating system for desalinated water production.

In 2015, the company operationalised the Jubail system phase two with a production capacity of approximately one million m³/day. For several years, it was the largest water desalination system in the world. Later, the Ras Al-Khair plant was inaugurated, securing a Guinness certificate as the world's largest dual-purpose water desalination and power production plant.

In 2021, Saline Water Conversion Corporation set a new Guinness World Record title for the lowest energy consumption for a water desalination plant with 2.27 kW/h per cubic meter of desalinated water.

In 2022, SWCC launched the world's largest floating desalination plant. In 2023, SWCC became the largest producer by transferring operating tasks and specialisations for 139 dam and well plants, achieving a daily freshwater output of 11.5 million cubic meters.

In 2024, The Saudi Water Authority (formerly SWCC) held 9 Guinness World Records:  Largest water desalination company, Largest network of water pipelines, Largest drinking water storage tank , Largest production capacity of a water desalination network, Lowest energy consumption for a water desalination plant, Largest water desalination plant (capacity), Largest drinking water storage tank network, Largest multi-effect distillation water desalination plant (capacity), and Largest drinking water storage facility.

Production
60% of the Kingdom’s water comes from desalination, while 30% is sourced from non-renewable groundwater and only 10% from surface water located in the south-west of the country. The Saudi Water Authority (SWA) has a production capacity of 7.5 million cubic metres per day. It aims to produce 11.5 million cubic metres per day, leveraging seawater and underground water.

It holds the top spot in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s largest producer of desalinated water, accounting for 22% of the world’s global production. SWA operates and monitors 33 desalination plants and over 139 purification plants in the country. The largest is located on the east coast of Jubail. The company has 14 transmission systems and 4,000 km (2,500 mi) of pipelines.

Workforce
The SWCC workforce employs 9,100 people, 98% of whom are local Saudi citizens. The company’s high rate of local Saudi citizens workforce is in line with the Crown Prince’s Vision 2030 localisation agenda, which encourages firms to train and hire locals.

Engineering
SWA operates its desalination plants at 99.2% of their design capacity by maintaining existing plants and investing in new technology. This has been achieved as part of its plans to replace older assets and strengthen the infrastructure for desalinated water production across the Kingdom, with an availability coefficient of 99.6% for its desalination plants.

In the early stages, SWA adopted Multi-Stage Flash (MSF) distillation as the primary desalination technology, miming the natural process of evaporation and condensation, using heat to evaporate water and then condensing it to produce fresh water. Later, the company switched to Multi-Effect Distillation (MED) due to the MSF energy-intensiveness and extensive maintenance required as a result of the scaling and corrosion caused by the high salt content of seawater. Like MSF, MED used heat to evaporate and condense water but was more efficient because it used the steam produced in one effect to heat the next, creating a cascade of multiple effects. MED showed improvement over MSF in terms of energy efficiency but still suffered from scale buildup and corrosion issues. After that, SWA switched to Reverse Osmosis (RO), which uses a semi-permeable membrane to separate salt and other impurities from seawater. RO is less energy-intensive than MSF and MED and does not suffer from the same scaling and corrosion issues. It allowed SWA to increase its production capacity while reducing energy consumption and operational costs. RO is the primary technology used by SWA in its desalination plants.

Public-private partnership
Water is provided at a low price to Saudi residential users. The government purchases water from private operators at high prices and then provides it to its citizenry at a heavily subsidised price. The local agriculture sector is the country’s highest water consumer, and it contributes to the depletion of fossil aquifers. This level of investment in water per capita is among the highest in the world due to the high cost of desalination. The Crown Prince’s Vision 2030 outlined the Kingdom’s aim to increase the role of private operators in the desalination industry. The Kingdom aims to raise US$200 billion in investment (not including Saudi Aramco’s IPO) through private-public partnerships and privatisation.

Capital projects
SWA’s projects are worth $120 billion and are buoyed by its strong government support. The portfolio includes over 80 projects, including developing production systems, upgrading and replacing ageing infrastructure, and creating new transmission systems and water tanks.

Conservation
While desalination ensures that over 97% of the local population has access to potable water https://ussaudi.org/water-in-saudi-arabia-desalination-wastewater-and-privatization/, social awareness around water conservation has traditionally been low in the kingdom. The growing population will require additional water resources, with output required to almost double in 2024 from current rates in order to meet demand. SWA has also been active in promoting water conservation and has launched awareness campaigns to educate the public about the importance of water conservation.

Environmental challenges
Since desalination is a high-intensity operation, SWA focuses on reducing its carbon emissions at existing plants from 60 to 37 million tonnes by 2025, nearly halving its emissions. SWA is also committed to planting 5 million trees by 2030. It also aims to replace the use of liquid fuel in its plants with alternative low-emission energy sources, which will reduce the company’s emissions by 10.8 million tonnes by 2024. It sources 20% of its desalination energy consumption from renewable sources in its new desalination plants.