US-based industrial conglomerate GE and Aramco Entrepreneurship, a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia-based petroleum company Saudi Aramco, have launched an open global challenge to improve the energy efficiency of seawater desalination.
The firms have stumped up a total of $200,000 for four potential winners of the Ecomagination challenge, with the total prize fund being shared equally between the successful applicants.
Current water desalination techniques consume large amounts of energy, which can account for up to 70% of desalination costs. The goal of the challenge is reduce these costs as the world becomes more reliant on desalination because of increased water scarcity.
The latest Ecomagination challenge is one of several innovation challenges launched by GE since 2005, with previous initiatives including advanced manufacturing techniques for aircraft component production and a challenge to advance breast cancer research.
In February this year, GE pledged to commit $10bn in research and development investment into Ecomagination technologies, bringing total Ecomagination funding to $25bn by 2020.