150,000 tons per day at a single plant in Tianjin, 50,000 tons per day in Hebei, a growing share of domestic equipment and energy consumption on a par with global leaders

As reported by CCTV+, China’s seawater desalination capacity has exceeded 3 million tons per day. That is equivalent to the daily water consumption of 15 million people, according to the Ministry of Natural Resources.

Desalination projects are steadily developing across the country. One of them is the “New Water Source” project in Cangzhou Botou, Hebei Province, which combines photovoltaic power, energy storage systems and desalination. The first phase is designed to produce 50,000 tons of fresh water per day. Construction is 60 percent complete.

Hu Xiaojie, Deputy General Manager of Hebei Botou New Water Source Company, explained: “The project aims to solve the water shortage problem in coastal Cangzhou. At the same time, we are implementing the resource-efficient use of concentrated brine, which will effectively optimise the region’s water resource allocation.”

In addition to accelerating construction, the desalination industry is deepening its focus on key technologies, gradually achieving self-sufficiency. A project in the Nangang Industrial Zone in Tianjin has reached a processing capacity of 150,000 tons per day. It includes a fully domestically produced production line with a single-unit capacity of 30,000 tons per day. This has broken the foreign technology monopoly. The project also features the first application of domestically developed energy recovery equipment with a capacity of 10,000 tons.

Currently, reverse osmosis desalination projects account for 68.25 percent of China’s total desalination capacity. The share of domestic equipment is steadily increasing, and energy consumption per ton of water is comparable to advanced international equipment.

Desalination plants are widely used in Shandong, Zhejiang, Hainan and other coastal provinces. More than 30 remote islands in these three provinces alone have achieved full water supply, completely ending their previous dependence on seaborne water replenishment.

Seawater desalination is the process of removing salts and impurities to produce fresh water suitable for drinking and industrial use. Reverse osmosis is the most efficient method and is widely used in China.

Three million tons of fresh water per day. Fifteen million people. The numbers are impressive, but they are not the point. The point is that China is no longer dependent on Western desalination technology. The Tianjin plant – with domestic equipment, energy recovery and a unit capacity of 30,000 tons – has broken the monopoly. Energy consumption is on a par with global leaders. And islands that once waited for water from the mainland now have their own. The question is not whether China will solve its water shortage problem. It is already solving it. The question is how quickly this technology will become available to other arid regions of the planet. While some are still making plans, China is already building plants. And drinking its own desalinated water.