The DESALRO 2.0® plant, designed by the Technological Institute of the Canary Islands (ITC) and located within the DESAL+ LIVING LAB environment, has received the Guinness World Records certificate as the desalination facility with the lowest energy consumption worldwide.
The award was presented during an official ceremony attended by the president of the Canary Islands, along with regional government authorities and representatives of the companies involved in the construction of this pilot plant.
During the ceremony held at the Pozo Izquierdo facilities of the Technological Institute of the Canary Islands (ITC), the president of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, highlighted that this recognition certifies the experimental DESALRO 2.0® plant as the desalination facility with the lowest energy consumption on the planet, with a certified value of 1.794 kWh per cubic meter. He underlined that “the Canary Islands are moving forward with firm steps toward a development model based on science and technology.” This achievement places the Canary Islands at the forefront of international water innovation and reinforces the leadership of R&D developed in the islands in a field that is essential to their present and future sustainability.
In his address, the president noted that “this milestone places the Archipelago on the world map with the record for the lowest energy consumption ever recorded at a desalination plant.”
The Guinness World Records representative, Anouk de Timary, presented the official certificate at an event that brought together public authorities, institutional representatives, and key stakeholders from the Canary Islands’ water sector. Fernando Clavijo also stressed that “today we are witnessing proof that scientific and technological excellence can emerge from a European outermost region; that public research, when aligned with the needs of the territory, can stand on par with—or even above—any center in the world.” The event was also attended by the minister of Universities, Science and Innovation, Migdalia Machín, and the minister of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries, and Food Sovereignty, Narvay Quintero.
The development of DESALRO 2.0® forms part of a historic trajectory that has made the Canary Islands an undisputed benchmark in the desalination sector. In 2025, the archipelago will mark 60 years since the inauguration, in Arrecife on the island of Lanzarote, of the first desalination plant in Spain and Europe—an achievement that paved the way for a long-standing path of technological specialization that today enjoys global recognition. With this new record, the Canary Islands reaffirm their role as a natural laboratory for the testing and validation of advanced solutions in desalination, energy efficiency, and integrated water-cycle management.
The DESALRO 2.0® plant operates at industrial scale, with a capacity of 2,500 m³ per day, and forms part of the DESAL+ LIVING LAB platform, which the ITC has consolidated as an international reference space for experimentation, knowledge transfer, and public–private collaboration in water technologies. The system features an optimized hydraulic design, high-pressure positive displacement pumps, state-of-the-art energy recovery devices, and a hybrid membrane configuration that maximizes efficiency and minimizes losses, offering a replicable and scalable model for island territories and regions facing water stress.
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