The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has announced the 20 winners for the Concept Stage of the Waves to Water Prize competition.
This is the first prize administered as part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Water Security Grand Challenge.
This announcement marks the opening of the Design Stage of the prize.
Part of the American-Made Challenges series, which incentivizes entrepreneurs to reassert American leadership in the energy marketplace, the Waves to Water Prize is intended to accelerate early-stage technologies for small, modular, cost-competitive desalination systems that use ocean waves to provide the energy required to desalinate ocean water and provide drinking water to remote and coastal communities.
Winners of the Waves to Water Prize CONCEPT Stage were chosen from a field of 66 eligible submissions and selected based on the degree of innovation, feasibility, additional benefits of their proposed idea, and the team’s technical and entrepreneurial skillsets.
Each of the selected winners received a $10,000 prize and will have the opportunity to refine their concepts in the DESIGN Stage of the competition.
The Waves to Water Prize CONCEPT Stage winners are published on the American-Made Challenges Waves to Water Prize website.
“ The concepts developed by all of the winners are promising ,” said Scott Jenne , an NREL researcher who helped inform the structure and content of the competition. “ It will be exciting to see how the winners further develop and refine their innovations in the upcoming stages to get ready for the final competition at the DRINK Stage .”
The kick off of the competition’s DESIGN Stage requires competitors to develop a technical plan and supporting analysis of their wave-powered desalination system.