INFRASTRUCTURE
Offshore plants bottle fresh water at sea
Floating desalination barges expand supply without land footprint
Wave energy-driven desalination platform. Image by Oneka Technologies.
As land scarcity and drought grow, innovators are moving desalination offshore. Floating plants turn seawater into potable supply, with some pilots exploring onboard packaging and direct distribution. Operators argue these systems avoid land-use conflicts and bring water closer to demand centers.
Saudi Arabia runs floating desalination stations. In 2025, Bahri began commercial operations of three floating desalination barges on the Red Sea. These mobile stations supply fresh water directly to coastal users, proving offshore systems can operate at scale.
UAE contracts floating desalination barge. Energy Recovery reported more than $12 million in desalination contracts in 2025, including a floating barge project in the Arabian Gulf. The unit will deliver fresh water offshore, piping it back to shore for municipal use.
California pilots wave-powered desalination. In July 2024, regulators approved a wave-energy desalination project off Fort Bragg. Built by Oneka Technologies, the floating buoys turn wave motion into pressure to produce potable water directly offshore.
Norway tests subsea desalination. Flocean announced in 2025 that it will launch the first commercial subsea desalination plant off Mongstad. The design processes seawater directly on the seabed, expanding the range of offshore water solutions.
Germany links desalination to offshore wind. As part of the H2Mare program, Germany’s DLR is commissioning a platform near Helgoland that integrates seawater desalination into a synthetic-fuels chain. The platform demonstrates how offshore energy and water systems can co-locate.
That’s not all: developers are studying how floating desalination plants could add bottling modules to package water directly at sea, shortening logistics chains. Analysts see offshore desalination as a niche but growing industry, especially in regions where drought and coastal megacities overlap.
—TFE
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