Abstract
The Waves to Water Prize spurred innovation in wave-powered desalination, in efforts to demonstrate small, modular, cost-competitive desalination systems that use the power of the ocean to provide potable drinking water to disaster impacted, remote, and islanded communities.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) launched the Waves to Water Prize in 2019. The five-staged prize aimed to accomplish the following three goals.
1. Evaluate the economic basis for small-scale modular wave power desalination;
2. Demonstrate desalination and marine renewable energy integration; and
3. Validate technologies in a field test setting that meet quantifiable benchmarks for freshwater production, ease of installation, cost and reliability/survivability.
Four teams advanced to the DRINK Finale held in Nags Head, North Carolina where the winning devices were shipped, assembled, viewed, weighed, judged, and tested in the open Ocean.