Kenya builds first solar-powered system that makes ocean water drinkable

Kenya has built the world’s first solar-powered system that turns ocean water into potable water.

The system is already being used by over 25,000 people daily, according to reports.

In a bid to provide safe and drinkable water to its citizenry, it has created a large-scale solar-powered desalination plant in the village of Kiunga on the Eastern coast of Kenya.

A non-governmental organization called Give Power, operating in Kenya since August 2018 has been able to transform the country’s salt water into drinkable one.

In some parts of Africa, drinking water has always been a problem confronting rural inhabitants, especially in sub-Saharan Africa where children are forced to give up their education in order to walk miles every day to fetch water for their families.

To convert the ocean water into drinking water, the NGO has built a Solar Water Farm sited by the Indian Ocean in Kiunga, a region which has seen extreme drought for many years and denying the 3,500 residents access to hygienic drinking water.

With $20 per person, the farm provides 20 years of access to clean water and it is reportedly helping the local economy.

“You have to find a way to pull water out of the ocean in a sustainable way,” the president of GivePower, Hayes Barnard said with the hope to open similar facilities in other areas.

Using its solar panels, the Solar Water Farm harvests solar energy which are able to produce 50 kilowatts of energy and power two water pumps that run 24 hours a day and it turns salty water safely into potable water.

“Humanity needs to take swift action to address the increasingly severe global water crisis that faces the developing world,” he said. “With our background in off-grid clean energy, GivePower can immediately help by deploying solar water farm solutions to save lives in areas throughout the world that suffer from prolonged water scarcity.”

Two billion people currently live in water-scarce regions and as many as 3.5 billion could experience water scarcity by 2025, according to WHO.