The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced the winners of $1 million in cash prizes in the final stage of the Waves to Water Prize, which challenged competitors to design, build, and test devices that use wave energy to produce clean drinking water from ocean water. Oneka Technologies won the grand prize of $500,000 for its device Oneka Snowflake.
“Competitors in the Waves to Water Prize have demonstrated
innovation and creativity in capturing wave-powered energy, and have also
demonstrated the additional humanitarian benefits of marine energy as a key
resource to increase access to clean drinking water,” said Principal Deputy
Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Kelly
Speakes-Backman. “Renewable, wave energy-powered systems could supply clean
water to water-scarce, remote, or island communities that are already
particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. These easily shipped
desalination systems may also prove to be a crucial lifeline to support
resilience and recovery in the face of worsening natural
disasters.”
The five-stage Waves to Water Prize, which is funded by
DOE’s Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) and
administered by the National
Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), challenged teams to develop small,
modular, wave energy-powered desalination systems and awarded $3.3 million
total over the last three years. This prize represents the first time DOE
supported a competition to develop and test devices that can turn ocean water
into drinking water using the natural energy in the ocean itself. The prize is
part of DOE’s Powering
the Blue Economy Initiative, which seeks to develop marine energy
systems to support the power needs of coastal and ocean
applications.
Oneka Technologies and three additional finalists safely
deployed their devices off Jennette’s Pier in Nags Head, North Carolina, on
Sunday, April 3, with support from experts from the Coastal Studies Institute
(CSI), which hosted the final prize stage. All devices successfully produced
water as designed. Due to unpredicted wind gusts, the devices became untethered
from their test locations on Sunday night and Monday morning, and were
subsequently retrieved from the water.
The results from this testing will help WPTO, NREL, and CSI
identify future research opportunities, such as on flexible and resilient
mooring systems, which anchor devices in place.
Oneka Technologies received the best overall score and
$500,000 from the prize pool. DOE also awarded prizes in the following
categories:
Lowest weight: Awarded to the team with the
lightest container delivered to the test site.
- WATER
BROS ($125,000)
Most water: Awarded to the team that produced
the most water.
- Oneka
Technologies ($125,000)
Simplest assembly: Split between teams based on
the fastest and simplest device assembly.
- Oneka
Technologies ($80,000)
- MarkZero
Prototypes ($20,000)
- WATER
BROS ($17,000)
- Project
816 ($9,000)
Simplest deployment: Split between teams based
on the fastest and simplest deployment.
- MarkZero
Prototypes ($38,000)
- WATER
BROS ($36,000)
- Project
816 ($26,000)
- Oneka
Technologies ($24,000)
Grand prize winner Oneka Technologies’ Oneka Snowflake, the
Wave-Powered Watermaker, is a circular, raft-like device that can be assembled
without tools, is easily installed, adapts to most ocean conditions, and is
designed to produce up to 10,000 liters of clean water per week (enough for about
450 people)—making it ideal for disaster and recovery situations.
Additional Waves to Water finalists include:
- MarkZero
Prototypes’ rapidly deployable MZSP Freshwater Production System, which
features pivoting arms; inflatable pontoons; an onboard, reverse-osmosis
system (to turn salt water into freshwater); and a constant-pressure,
variable-moment pump—all designed to meet the changing demands of diverse
ocean conditions.
- Project
816’s Ballast, Buoys, and Borrowing from Archimedes device, which can be
deployed in a variety of site conditions by just two people with common
equipment and basic tools and employs an inflatable, raft-based wave
energy converter built with commercial, off-the-shelf components that
power a land-based desalination system.
- WATER
BROS’ Wave Actuated, Tethered, Emergency Response, Buoyant Reverse Osmosis
System (WATER BROS), which is a wave-powered device that has a
unidirectional, rotational wave energy conversion mechanism, uses
near-shore waves to generate clean drinking water even in the harshest of
conditions, and has the potential to be rapidly deployable, low cost, and
highly resilient—optimal for emergency response.
Competing teams received support throughout the challenge from
Engineering for Change, International Desalination Association, Janicki
Industries, Google, Wood Next Foundation, Creative Destruction Lab, Dominion
Energy, Surfline, National Hydropower Association, Outer Banks Woman’s Club,
and the Town of Nags Head. Following the prize’s launch in 2019, DOE received
66 submissions from a wide range of innovators—from individuals to academic
teams to small businesses.
Learn more about the finalist wave-powered desalination devices and the Waves to Water Prize
