“Saudi Water Authority (SWA) announced on Monday that it has achieved the world’s lowest energy consumption rate for producing desalinated water, securing entry into the Guinness World Records.

A 200,000 cubic metres per day (m3/day) mobile reverse osmosis (RO) desalination plant, located within the Yanbu desalination complex on the Red Sea coast, recorded lowest energy use of 1.55 kilowatt-hours per cubic metre (kWh/m3), SWA said in a social media post.

The previous global benchmark was held by Saudi’s Shuaibah 5 desalination plant, a 664,000 m3/day facility on the Red Sea coast, which achieved 1.7 kWh/m3, according to an SWA statement issued in February 2026. That itself was a significant improvement from Shuaibah 5’s earlier record of 2.34 kWh/m3, first announced in May 2025.”

From Zawya.