[Brief translation]
With technical cooperation from Saga University, India’s National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) succeeded in operational experimentation of seawater desalination plant. It produces fresh water of 1,000 ton/day, utilizing OTEC demonstration plant, which had been constructed along the coast of India.
The new seawater desalination technology does not require large amount of energy and is not affected by the quality of seawater. It is expected to contribute to solving the serious water resource problem, which has been deepened in many developing countries such as India.
The desalination process of the offshore plant off the coast of Chennai is; pumping up low-temperature deep seawater from 500 meters depth of ocean through an intake pipe of 1 meter in diameter, evaporating warm surface seawater into vapor in low-pressurized environment, cooling the vapor by the deep seawater to fresh water utilizing OTEC heat exchangers. It only requires temperature difference of 15 degree Celsius.
Although the power source of the plant operation including pumping deep seawater is diesel power generation at the moment, OTEC power generation is being considered as the future energy source for the desalination plant operation.
NIOT said, "We would like to construct a new plant with 10 times more capacity of the same type of the plant within one year."

- Seawater desalination itself is not a real challenge
According to Mr. Masanori MONDE, Director of Institute of Ocean Energy, Saga University (IOES), implementing seawater desalination only requires smaller temperature difference, less power consumption of pumps, and the relatively short length of the intake pipe, comparing OTEC power generation. He said, “We would like to keep providing technical cooperation in terms of OTEC power generation in order for the desalination plant to be self-sufficient without any fuel required for its own operation.