Documentary Short Illustrates Impact of Waves to Water Prize

In Honor of World Water Day, We Are Taking a Closer Look at the NREL-Administered Prize Charting a New Course for Wave-Powered Desalination

March 22, 2023 | By Tiffany Plate | Contact media relations

A diver moving away from a device that floats in the ocean next to a pier leading to a beach. — At the Waves to Water Prize DRINK Finale at Jennette’s Pier in Nags Head, North Carolina, experts from the Coastal Studies Institute helped secured competitors’ wave-powered desalination prototypes to anchor sites to see how they performed in the open ocean. *Photo from Coastal Studies Institute*

World Water Day is about accelerating real change in the quest to address the world’s growing water crisis. Today, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is reflecting on how the Waves to Water Prize is helping bring about that change.

In honor of World Water Day, NREL and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office released a short documentary that showcases the inspiration behind the NREL-administered Waves to Water Prize.

The documentary, titled "From Waves to Water: Securing Our Future Through Wave-Powered Desalination," details how this prize encouraged innovators to develop small, modular, wave-energy-powered desalination systems that have the potential to address water scarcity issues around the world.

Watch the film to see up-close footage of the Waves to Water Prize’s DRINK Finale in April 2022, where competitors successfully used wave energy to power reverse osmosis systems that produced clean drinking water.

A beach lined with houses with the words From Waves to Water: Securing Our Future Through Wave-Powered Desalination overlain. — Watch a short video, available on YouTube and titled From Waves to Water: Securing Our Future Through Wave-Powered Desalination, to learn more about how this NREL-administered prize is helping advance the desalination potential of wave energy converters.

Dive into the details about NREL’s own wave-powered desalination device and marine energy research. And learn more about other prizes in the American-Made program that are driving innovation like Waves to Water.