In October 2018, India's Science and Technology Minister Harsh Vardhan laid the foundation stone for a desalination plant by the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) on Kavaratti Island in Lakshadweep. The plant was to generate its own power through ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC), using the temperature difference between warm surface water and cold deep water. NIOT described it as the world's first prototype of its kind, with a capacity of 100,000 litres of drinking water; its success was to decide an offshore 10,000 m³/day plant off Chennai.
The report showed a research approach to free island desalination from diesel power; NIOT had run low-temperature thermal plants there since 2005, with pumps fed by the islands' diesel grid.
Source: The New Indian Express