A group of international scientists working in outback South Australia has devised a crop production system which does not rely on diminishing fresh water supplies.

There is an incongruous sight in the parched outback; a state-of-the-art greenhouse powered by the sun and reliant only on salt water as a basis for irrigation.

Philipp Saumweber, of Sundrop Farms, has assembled a team of water and engineering experts outside Port Augusta.

"This set-up is unique. Nobody has done what we're doing before and to our knowledge nobody has done something even similar," he said.

"What we were really looking for when we built this team is people who had a passion for changing the way agriculture is done.

"Rather than lamenting about all the problems in agriculture and the water scarcity and the energy security issues, we wanted a team that was passionate about solving problems."

Others in the team include Reinier Wolterbeek, from the Netherlands, who has a civil engineering background and a masters degree in water management and David Pratt, from Canada, whose expertise is in greenhouse management.

The team is now using the sun's warmth to remove the salt from seawater to produce heating, cooling and power for growers to deliver fruit and vegetables.

A 70 metre-long stretch of solar panels collects the energy and black tubing that runs through the centre of the panels is filled with thermal oil, which is heated up to 160 degrees Celsius.

The oil is then pumped through the tube to a storage shed where the heat is used by a water storage system.

A control mechanism then determines how that heat will be used, some for greenhouse temperature control, some to power the set-up, but most of the stored heat for desalination of tidal bore water.

When the heat reaches the desal unit and meets up with relatively-cold seawater, the temperature difference creates condensation, the end result being fresh water for use on crops.

The brine ends up in ponds and the salt can be extracted as a saleable by-product.

Impressive

David Travers, a representative of University College London, says it is an impressive combination of technologies.

"It's unique in the sense that it's the only example we're aware of in the world where there's that complete integration of the collection of solar energy, the desalination of water, the production of energy sources from electricity through to heating and storage and then the growing of plants, in this case tomatoes and capsicums, in a greenhouse environment," he said.

David Travers was once a Young South Australian of the Year and has been a newspaper editor, a political advisor and London-based representative for the SA Government.

"Philipp first came to me several years ago with a bit of a concept that they'd been developing in the Middle East looking at the ways in which you'd use solar energy to desalinate water and to apply that in a greenhouse setting," he recalled.

"They were looking at that stage at the Middle East and Africa and an Australian location - and Port Augusta was one of a couple that they were exploring.

"I was working at the time in the Australian High Commission and we used to get quite a lot of interesting ideas and I thought for a while this sounded like just one of those other interesting ideas but the more we looked into it, the more convinced I was that it had some merit."

Now CEO of the University College London Adelaide office, Mr Travers became so convinced of the merit of the Sundrop technology that he signed on as chairman.

The team points out glasshouses achieve more control over the crop than other methods.

Fertilisers can be more specifically targeted than in the field, irrigated water does not evaporate and diseases and pests are easier to manage.

"Obviously we have higher fixed costs at the beginning because we're installing solar technology and some other technologies, but over time we have much lower running costs and we're not exposed to the volatility in energy prices," Mr Saumweber said.

The company believes it can achieve savings of between 5-15 per cent over fossil fuel-powered glasshouses.

It can rely 100 per cent on solar during the summer months, but in winter resorts to diesel power for up to 20 per cent of the time.

The experimental greenhouse is 2,000 square metres, but there are plans before the local council for a $30 million eight-hectare commercial glasshouse on the current site.

Interest in the technique has been coming from abroad, including the Middle East where issues of food and water security are high on the agenda.