Gleaming pipe sculpture could use solar power to desalinate up to 4.5 billion litres of drinking water every year Visitors to the seafront in Santa Monica could one day see a shining sculpture made from solar panels as they look out onto the horizon, as a huge energy array provides power that enables water desalination for millons of California's residents. That's the vision of the creators of 'The Pipe', a green energy concept that would employ thousands of solar PV panels to pump seawater through an electromagnetic filtration process in order to provide 4.5 billion litres of freshwater every year. The concept is a finalist in the 2016 Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI), which invites artists and creatives to design attractive clean energy solutions to provide drought-stricken California with clean energy and fresh drinking water. It creators, a team of designers from Canadian engineering firm Khalili Engineers, said The Pipe's freshwater output could be fed directly into the city's primary water grid, while the salt water would supply The Pipe's thermal baths before being piped back out to sea. In previous years LAGI has been held in Copenhagen, New York and Dubai. In the past it has asked entrants to design site-specific public artwork that delivers clean energy to local grids. This year's competition brings the issue of water scarcity into the equation for the first time, highlighting California's status as a severly water-stressed state. Other entrants to this year's LAGI include an underwater desalination plant powered by wave energy, a solar-powered hot air balloon and a wave energy array using retired swan boats from the nearby pier. The entries will be judged by a panel of architects, urban designers and energy experts, with the winners announced in October.