Neil Wade

A thermal desal veteran in the truest sense of the word; a consultant's consultant who diligently addressed the Middle East's distillation needs.

Neil Wade – Neil Wade

Neil had started his career in electrical engineering, but moved to Preece, Cardew and Rider's desalination department in 1967. With them he worked on various thermal plants before being sent to Malta to oversee construction of the Gozo plant – 'a wonderful place to live, but a difficult job, as the plant contractor Hitachi rapidly overtook the somewhat limited progress of the local civil contractor.'

Middle East contracts came to the fore back in England, including the Rumaith and engineering the first 4,550m³/d horizontal tube MED units in the Gulf.

Neil became head of desalination at the new Ewbank Preece on a merger in 1982, and continued in that role when Mott MacDonald took over in 1994, seeing ever larger plants, including Jebel Ali G and Al Taweelah A. Neil retired in principle in 1998, but continued to work part-time, as well as holding the EDS presidency to 2000, until shifting his attention to other matters in rural Sussex in 2002.

Landmark plants:

• UKAEA/Aiton (Gibraltar, vertical tube falling film MED);
• the Rumaith (UAE, floating MSF for remote onshore locations);
• Abu Dhabi (UAE, first Gulf 4,550m³/d horizontal tube MED units);
• Jebel Ali G (Dubai, UAE, 205,000m³/d, MSF plus gas turbine);
• Al Taweelah A2 (Abu Dhabi, UAE, 227,000m³/d, MSF) – first Middle East private water and power plant