MIT: Megascale Desalination-World’s largest & cheapest reverse-osmosis desalination plant
Megascale Desalination: The world’s largest and cheapest reverse-osmosis desalination plant is up and running in Israel.
The Sorek plant was built on the Mediterranean coast, 15km south of Tel Aviv. Image:IDE Technologies.
On a Mediterranean beach 10 miles south of Tel Aviv, Israel, a vast new industrial facility hums around the clock. It is the world’s largest modern seawater desalination plant, providing 20 percent of the water consumed by the country’s households. Built for the Israeli government by Israel Desalination Enterprises, or IDE Technologies, at a cost of around $500 million, it uses a conventional desalination technology called reverse osmosis (RO). Thanks to a series of engineering and materials advances, however, it produces clean water from the sea cheaply and at a scale never before achieved.
Worldwide, some 700 million people don’t have access to enough clean water. In 10 years the number is expected to explode to 1.8 billion. In many places, squeezing fresh water from the ocean might be the only viable way to increase the supply.
The new plant in Israel, called Sorek, was finished in late 2013 but is just now ramping up to its full capacity; it will produce 627,000 cubic meters of water daily, providing evidence that such large desalination facilities are practical. Indeed, desalinated seawater is now a mainstay of the Israeli water supply. Whereas in 2004 the country relied entirely on groundwater and rain, it now has four seawater desalination plants running; Sorek is the largest. Those plants account for 40 percent of Israel’s water supply. By 2016, when additional plants will be running, some 50 percent of the country’s water is expected to come from desalination.
The traditional criticism of reverse-osmosis technology is that it costs too much. The process uses a great deal of energy to force salt water against polymer membranes that have pores small enough to let fresh water through while holding salt ions back. However, Sorek will profitably sell water to the Israeli water authority for 58 U.S. cents per cubic meter (1,000 liters, or about what one person in Israel uses per week), which is a lower price than today’s conventional desalination plants can manage. What’s more, its energy consumption is among the lowest in the world for large-scale desalination plants...
Earlier in development are advanced membranes made of atom-thick sheets of carbon (Graphene), which hold the promise of further cutting the energy needs of desalination plants...MORE
http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/534996/megascale-desalination/
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Water Desalination In Israel
Published on Apr 25, 2012 (Before Sorek)
In Israel, approximately 300 million cubic meters (MCM) of water are desalinated annually. This is done at three different seawater desalination facilities -- Ashkelon, Palmachim and Hadera, as well as at several other salty water desalination facilities. According to the decision made by the government of Israel in 2008, the goal is to achieve an annual desalination volume of 600 MCM as soon as possible, and reach an annual volume of 750 MCM by the year 2020. If this goal is reached, it will be possible to begin restoring groundwater reservoirs and maintain the Kinneret at the preferable water level.
You might ask- "What about desalination in Saudi Arabia?"
World’s Largest Solar Powered Seawater Desalination Plant
Published on Mar 5, 2015
Al Khafji (Saudi Arabia) is the home for what's already referred to as the largest desalination plant fully powered by renewable solar energy.
= new reply since forum marked as read
But on a world wide scale…. 
