Clean water from ocean waves - Wave2O

Over two billion people suffer from the effects of water scarcity and the vast majority of those affected live in coastal areas in developing countries and remote communities. Seawater desalination is an excellent potential solution, but desalination systems require a connection to a strong and reliable electrical grid for their power supply.

Because our target customers typically lack sufficient grid capacity and cannot afford the capital or time required to build and deploy grid-connected systems, Resolute Marine has devised a unique solution to this problem - the world’s first wave-driven desalination system (Wave2O™) that can be deployed quickly, operate completely “off-grid” and supply large quantities of clean fresh water at competitive cost.

Wave2O™ harnesses the abundant and consistent energy of ocean waves to directly drive the desalination process. The key technologies that enable Wave2O™ have been validated in a series of tests which have proven that Wave2O™ can be a reliable and cost-effective water production system with utility in multiple places and in multiple uses around the world. While Wave2O™ has been designed with simple operation and maintenance in mind, it incorporates several innovative technologies invented by RME.  

Our solution targets “off-grid” coastal communities in developing nations where Wave2OTMhas the unique advantage of filling a large gap in the market between utility-scale and micro-scale fresh water production systems. 

At macro/utility scale, “on-grid” solutions (dams, pipelines, power plants) require large capital investment, take many years to build and, in general, are only available to wealthy nations.  At micro/household scale, solutions focus on increasing the utility of water that is polluted or inaccessible and provide relief for relatively few people.  

At “middle scale”, there is only one incumbent technology, diesel-powered desalination systems, which can be partially or wholly displaced by Wave2OTMin off-grid communities with access to an energetic wave resource. 

We believe Cape Verde represents the shortest path to commercialization because it suffers from severe water scarcity and is dependent upon diesel-electric desalination systems for 85% of its water supply and because we have secured a commitment from the local power and water utility, Electra, to purchase a full-scale 4,000 m3/day Wave2O™ plant after trials of a demonstration plant have been successfully completed. This effort is already financed in part by the African Development Bank.

Such a plant would produce water at a third of the average cost of water and will fulfill the needs of approximately 40,000 people. It would furthermore displace an equivalent of 5,840,000 kWh/year of energy that have would otherwise been produced by fossil-fueled means, e.g. diesel-electric generators. This would represent a reduction in CO2emissions of 4,346 tons/plant, the equivalent of taking 936 cars off the road, or of the carbon sequestered by 4,000 acres of forest.

Once successful in Cape Verde, we will quickly expand globallyand, for that, we have already been actively promoting Wave2O™ in several countries and have obtained preliminary commitments to deploy Wave2O™ plants in South Africa and Mauritius.