Energy Recovery wins equipment contract for Saudi desalination plant
Energy Recovery has won a contract to supply PX Q650 energy recovery devices to a new seawater reverse osmosis desalination plant in Saudi Arabia. The award was announced earlier this week. The plant is expected to rank among the 10 largest desalination plants in the world once completed.
The company has not disclosed the client, project name, contract value or plant capacity. The announcement therefore identifies the equipment supplier and technology, but does not provide the project details needed to assess the contract’s scale or commercial terms.
The PX Q650 recovers energy from the high-pressure reject stream in reverse osmosis and transfers it back to the feedwater. This reduces the energy needed to produce potable water. Energy Recovery describes the device as its latest and highest-capacity Pressure Exchanger technology.
Launched in March 2026, the PX Q650 has a single moving part and a design life of about 30 years. Rodney Clemente, Energy Recovery’s Senior Vice President of Water, said the company built it to meet the performance, scale and operational demands of the world’s leading desalination plants.
Energy Recovery says its PX technology has been used in seawater desalination for more than three decades. The company says it has cut desalination energy consumption by up to 60 per cent and supports the treatment of about 48.5 million cubic metres of water per day globally.
The Saudi award follows other PX Q650 contracts secured earlier this year for projects in Asia and the Middle East. Energy Recovery has also announced plans for a manufacturing facility near Dammam, Saudi Arabia. The article does not state whether that facility is connected to this contract.
Desalination supplies more than 70 per cent of the Kingdom’s potable water, according to the article. It describes efficiency gains as central to Saudi Arabia’s water security goals under Saudi Vision 2030.
