On Tuesday 13 October, in Dublin, two people walked on stage to collect an award about an island 2,000 kilometres away. Jafeth Alonso, the Canarian government’s director general of Universities and Research, and Baltasar Peñate, head of the Water Department at the Canary Islands Technological Institute (ITC) and DESAL+ coordinator, received the Water-Oriented Living Lab of the Year Award 2026, given by Water Europe as part of its Water-Smart Awards at the Water Innovation Europe conference.
DESAL+ Living Lab beat three other finalists in a category new this year within Water4All’s network of open innovation labs. The evaluation period ran from October 2025 to September 2026. Water Europe’s call lays out the criteria: co-creation of sustainable solutions with a mix of stakeholders, demonstration and validation of technology in real conditions, the ability to mobilise investment, and measurable contributions to a more resilient water economy.
So what is it? A Canarian platform for collaborative research and testing in desalination and water technology, created in 2017 and led by the ITC. It runs 24 pilot desalination plants across 11 test areas, and works on energy efficiency, renewable integration, digitalisation and brine valorisation. Six bodies make it up: the ITC, ACIISI, the University of La Laguna, the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, SPEGC and the Association of Municipalities of Northern Gran Canaria, plus a wider network of collaborators. The model is a “quadruple helix”: universities, administration, companies and civil society.
If you live in the Canaries, desalination isn’t a conference topic. Some islands rely heavily on the sea for drinking water, and a kilowatt-hour saved on each cubic metre shows up, sooner or later, on the water bill. One concrete ITC example is DESALRO 2.0, the experimental plant at Pozo Izquierdo on Gran Canaria, which in December 2025 earned a Guinness World Record as the lowest-energy desalination plant on the planet: 1.794 kWh per cubic metre, at industrial scale and with a capacity of 2,500 cubic metres a day. It belongs to the DESAL+ platform.
The application was prepared under the IDIWATER project, 85% co-financed by the Interreg MAC programme. The award coincided with the release of Water4All’s Atlas of Water-Oriented Living Labs 2026, which covers infrastructure in 13 countries and includes DESAL+.
Peñate put it this way: the award recognises almost ten years of collective work. Universities, science and innovation minister Migdalia Machín added that it shows the Canaries have the knowledge, professionals and technological infrastructure to tackle water challenges.
One question the announcements don’t answer: how much of this technology has already left the lab and is running in the plants that actually supply people and farms, and with what savings. The award recognises the method and the research results. Measuring the effect on your water bill will take different data.
