Desalination MBA Insights
Beyond theory: real-world insights into desalination projects, strategies, and market trends.
A few members of our community have been consistently asking for deeper insights into desalination.
At The Water MBA, whenever there’s a clear and meaningful demand, we take action, and now it’s real: a dedicated paid tier focused on desalination is here.
In this new series, I’ll share insights as if I were speaking directly to my own team.
For those of us working in this field, desalination is not just another water project.
These projects often become the backbone of a country’s development, enabling economic growth and improving wellbeing.
Think of North Africa, the Middle East, or other water-stressed regions.
Some nations rely almost entirely on desal, while others use it as a critical safety net in their water portfolio.
Just look at Barcelona over the last four years of drought, without desal, the situation would have been catastrophic.
Beyond theory and textbooks, we’ll explore the realities of navigating desal projects:
How certain documents or deliverables link into the bigger project structure.
The key roles and project stages, and where the real critical points lie.
When not to waste time debating with a consultant, and when to stand firm.
Cost-benefit strategies and smart trade-offs between CapEx and OpEx.
The domino effect of small decisions made in everyday meetings.
Common mistakes from design to construction and how to avoid them.
The importance of controllers, those who act as the nexus for project information and help minimize issues.
Consolidated water technologies that are already established in the market.
Water technologies struggling to enter the market, and why they fail to achieve adoption.
The influence of stakeholders at each stage (public entities, private offtakers, developers, EPC, O&M, vendors, owner’s engineers, contractors, subcontractors, design institutes, etc.).
Common mistakes I find in RFPs from different stakeholders, whether from offtakers or from EPCs to vendors.
Typical construction site failures.
Mistakes made in the transition from paper to reality—when engineering designs are not properly implemented on site.
Long-lead items and how to ensure timely equipment supply.
Typical meetings—and how to survive them.
An endless list of insights, etc, etc…
Desal projects are massive undertakings, millions of work hours, hundreds of purchase orders, stringent site requirements, and major electrical infrastructure to power energy-hungry systems where efficiency is the difference between winning and losing a project.
This tier is for professionals who want a holistic view of desalination, beyond the technical details, into the strategy, risks, and decisions that truly shape outcomes.
In this series of articles, I want to guide you through a complete journey into the world of desalination.
For example: