UAE-based Almar Water Solutions, a specialist in the design, financing, operation and maintenance of water infrastructure, has joined hands with Chile-based Trends group of companies to develop one of the world's largest solar powered SWRO project in the Atacama region of the South American country.

The project called 'Enapac' (abbreviaton for the spanish name "Energías y Aguas del Pacífico") will be the first multiclient desalination plant in Chile besides being the largest in Latin America and the first large scale plant powered with photovoltaic energy and one of the most advanced projects in the world, combining reverse osmosis desalination with solar energy.

Enapac consists of a seawater desalination project for Atacama that will be supplied with it's own source of photovoltaic energy.

With an estimated initial investment of $500 million Enapac will become the largest desalination plant in Chile and Latin America, with its maximum capacity of 2.600 l/s, stated Trend Industrial's CEO Rodrigo Silva after singing the deal with Almar Water Solutions CEO Carlos Cosín.

Silva said: "The MoU comes to consolidate the work of several years in which we have developed a sustainable project from the socio-environmental point of view, as well as from the economic perspective for the advantages of the multiclient model of Enapac, in which economies of scale are taken advantage of, reduces the impact on the territory and improves efficiency, as we have been seeing in large-scale mining projects in Chile, which have opted for collaboration."

Enapac has been for about a year in the process of environmental evaluation from Chilean authorities with positive advances, so a favorable resolution is expected during the second half of 2018, he noted.

On the deal, Cosín said this consolidates Almar's interest in developing innovative and state-of-the-art technology projects combining desalination with solar energy, while at the same time sealing its commitment to the long-term success of the Enapac project.-TradeArabia News Service