The renewable-energy (RE) desalination community should organize itself into a body that will represent the sector and lobby for its interests, says a new report.
The new body, to be known as the RE-Desalination Association, is the key recommendation of the RE-Desalination Roadmap, just published by the RE-Desalination Working Group set up by the European ProDes project. The target is to have it established before 2012 and to include at least 20 members.
The roadmap has been developed with input from various key actors from the industry and academia. It is intended to assist in coordinating and guiding the RE-desalination community in overcoming the barriers it is currently facing.
According to the roadmap, the sector aims to achieve a 3-5 % share of the new installations in the global desalination market by 2016. It also calls for a common definition of research and development priorities that will be promoted to bodies that fund R&D.
Special attention is paid to education, with the intention to establish RE-desalination training activities reaching at least 2,000 students and 500 professionals per year within Europe by 2015. Finally, a comprehensive analysis on a country-by-country basis, covering the four most promising markets by 2014 is required, with parallel activities on promoting appropriate legal structures and policies in these countries.
The roadmap can be downloaded for free at the ProDes website. A hard copy can be also obtained through the publishers, Fraunhofer Verlag.