The Journey of HERO WEC (Text Version)

This is the text version of the video The Journey of HERO WEC.

[Music playing]

>> Alec Schnabel, Researcher, NREL: It's important that we start small. And I think the HERO WEC is doing a great job at kind of finding the niche areas where, you know, if not grid power, what can we use wave energy for?

>> Scott Jenne, Researcher, NREL: On top of just making a device, putting it in the water and learning from it, what we're also doing is collecting a bunch of data from a number of sensors that are on the device. And what we're doing is we're putting that out in the public for easy access. So, anybody from a university or industry who wants to take this idea and keep going with it, it's there.

[Text: The Journey of HERO WEC]

>> Narrator: What if we could use energy from the waves to turn seawater into drinking water?

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Hydraulic and Electric Reverse Osmosis Wave Energy Converter, or HERO WEC, is doing exactly that.

>> Scott: So, the HERO WEC is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. This is a project that we're using to really understand how wave power desalination systems work. So effectively, what we're looking at with this technology is, how do changes in the technology impact cost effectiveness of these solutions and really get us to a point where in the future we can have cost effective wave powered desalination systems?

>> Narrator: This work represents the overarching value of small-scale wave-powered desalination to communities and the clean energy sector at large.

>> Scott: In the early days of this project, we were really just trying to build a system that would work, essentially build something that was representative of the kinds of technologies seen before, to really give us a baseline and understand where we needed to go with the future research.

[Animation of the HERO WEC under construction]

>> Narrator: Designs for the HERO WEC began back in 2020. The project marked the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's first marine-powered desalination device to weather real ocean waters. In part its creation and deployment helped prepare for the Department of Energy's Waves to Water prize that encouraged competitors from across the country to create their own wave-powered desalination systems. But the HERO WEC's purpose extends beyond the scope of the prize.

>> Scott: So, with this project, we're not just building a device and installing it. We're creating all the data. We're collecting information from deployments, from lab tests. We're creating SolidWorks drawings. We're doing bill of materials. We're essentially creating a cookbook, if you will, a recipe book on how to create one of these. And so essentially the idea there is that someone can take this technology and build upon it and make it better. So, we're not trying to hide this information. We're trying to get this out in the open.

>>Narrator: Let's break this down. The HERO WEC is a small modular device that uses either a hydraulic or electric power conversion system to remove salt from seawater. A process called desalination.

>> Scott: Desalination, particularly small-scale wave-powered desalination, is something that we're really interested in understanding for coastal communities, island communities, and other areas that don't really have the same infrastructure that we're used to seeing in the continental United States.

Having technologies like this is really important to help make sure that those areas have the resources that they need and have the infrastructure that they need whenever they need it.

[Animation demonstrating the hydraulic configuration]

>>Narrator: The hydraulic system within HERO WEC relies on motion in any direction away from the anchor, where the heave or surge of waves helps pump ocean water through a hose that pressurizes a land-based reverse osmosis desalination system.

[Animation demonstrating the electric configuration]

Alternatively, the electric system uses the motion of the waves to engage an onboard generator to create electricity. The electricity then travels through a subsea cable, stores it in a battery, which powers a pump that draws water from the ocean and pushes it through the same reverse osmosis desalination system.

>> Mark Murphy, Research Technician, NREL: We built it to be kind of modular, that we could basically plug in the hydraulic system, get the hydraulic pressure, run a mechanical system for making fresh water, and then remove the hydraulic pump and put an electric generator on. And the electric generator, then basically takes that same rotational motion and turns it, but it turns it into electrical energy.

>> Alec: I think it's really important that we, as a national lab in general, are exploring both options to kind of flesh out what needs to be explored more, where the strengths or the weaknesses and what we can do better in industry and as researchers.

>>Narrator: With time, iteration, and testing, HERO WEC is continuing to develop, and its future is becoming more concrete.

>> Scott: The first stage was really just to create a baseline, make something work, understand where the challenges are. The next stage for us is going to be focusing on that robust, reliable design. And then once we get to a point where we're comfortable with the fact that the system can stay in the water for the time that it's needed, then what we'll end up doing is start focusing on performance. And when I say performance, we're talking about water output. Essentially, how can we create the most water of a drinkable quality.

And at that point, then we're probably going to be looking at things like array, challenges. How do you put multiple devices together in the most effective manner? But realistically, that's probably not going to come from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. That's likely where we're going to take the technology and pass it to industry partners or so on. Which is another big goal of this project, where really a lot of what we're doing is trying to get the information and the data out to the people who need it most.

>>Narrator: While the journey of HERO WEC continues, the potential impact and benefit of this technology is already reaching far beyond the lab.

The ocean testing of the HERO WEC has all taken place at Jennette's Pier in Nags Head, North Carolina, in partnership with the Coastal Studies Institute.

>> Lindsay Dubbs, Associate Director and Research Associate, North Carolina Renewable Energy Program: So, Jennette's Pier is a great location in a couple of ways. First of all, we have a wave energy resource here. And this is also a location where we feel the effects of climate change with increasing storm frequency, increasing storm intensity, and those increasing storms, of course, put our water supply at risk. And so, the HERO WEC is kind of like win, win, win.

>> Lindsay Wentzel, Research Technician, Coastal Studies Institute: We actually have an influence on the community through desalinated water, through energy collection from a relatively, in the grand scheme of things, a relatively simplified, energy converter. I think that's really exciting. Just to have more of an interdisciplinary look into research and especially in marine research, because you can go out and you can deploy a buoy, and you can get really exciting measurements for the science community. But with something like the HERO WEC, you actually have a deliverable that you can give back to the community.

>>Narrator: The Coastal Studies Institute is considering the socioeconomic relationship of technologies like the HERO WEC and communities who might use them.

>> Eric Wade, Assistant Professor, Department of Coastal Studies, East Carolina University: So for me, I don't think we can separate the engineering and oceanography from the social sciences. I think they must be at the same table at the same time. And they must be moving in parallel with each other. The equipment is great, but equipment is not there, you know, in and of itself. Right? It's in the space that is valued by the community and that communities use. We're almost introducing something that is foreign to this space. And so, to do that, we need to understand communities. We need to understand resource users and how they are, how they depend on this space to really introduce this equipment.

>>Narrator: And deploying the HERO WEC at Jennette's Pier is giving one community a front row seat to this emerging technology.

>> Lindsay Dubbs: All of the visitors to Jennette's Pier and the beaches surrounding it, get to see the HERO WEC in place and having those tangible examples for the public to see and witness and experience, is really important for helping the public to understand how big of a role marine energy could play in meeting some of these niche markets for energy, as well as the larger energy demands of the United States.

>> Mike Remige, Pier Director, Jennette’s Pier: We're a public facility, the public is invited to come out every day. 10,000 kids a year from North Carolina come here for educational programming. That's a huge number. That's affecting a lot of people. So, you know, a lot of scientific research is done in a black box. It's out of the public eye. It's only shared in posters and, you know, papers and through conferences. The public doesn't get the opportunity to directly engage with the research, but here they do, and that's what we're most proud of.

>>Narrator: But this community engagement and excitement wouldn't have been possible without the interdisciplinary team that has come together to make the HERO WEC a reality.

>> Scott: One of the greatest things about this project is we have a phenomenal team that's been put together from a number of disciplines. We have just within our own organization, we've had close to 100 people working on this project over the last four years.

Outside of our organization is, you know, right behind me. We've got the Coastal Studies Institute. This is a team that's been astronomical in helping us understand how to do stuff in the ocean. You know, our laboratory is sitting in the middle of Colorado, pretty far away from any ocean. So, we bring experts from around the country who really know how to work in the ocean. They've got oceanographers, they've got marine biologists, they've got a number of divers and technicians who can really help us kind of understand the nuts and bolts of how do you do something in the water. But ultimately this is one of those projects where it's so multi-disciplinary and so multifaceted that if you don't have that team of all those experts, you're really not going to make it that far.

>> Lindsay Wentzel: I mean, on any deployment day, we'll have biologists, oceanographers, scientific divers, engineers all coming together and working together. And I think one of the biggest things is just having that team dynamic and also just having a team that genuinely enjoys working together and wants to get the task done.

>>Narrator: All while continuing to keep community, surrounding environment, and impact at the front of mind.

>> Scott: I mean, ultimately, you know, again, we're putting things in the environment and what we need to do is make sure that these technologies aren't going to do more harm than good. You know, we go through a series of reviews for permitting to understand that we've done the right environmental assessments. We have the right use cases here, that we're not putting something in an area where it shouldn't be put in there.

>> Lindsay Dubbs: A lot of times when we find solutions to our problems, we don't think about those things and we have to deal with them on the back end, which is oftentimes much more difficult than thinking about them from the beginning and thinking about not only the environmental consequences of how we are using resources, but also the other people that are using those resources.

>>Narrator: As HERO WEC continues to pave the way for more efficient, robust, and cost-effective wave-powered desalination in the United States, NREL researchers hope it's just the beginning.

>> Scott: So, the future of the HERO WEC is pretty simple. Right now, we're kind of working on our last deployment of this iteration. Once we collect this data, we'll go back to the lab. We'll do some more learning. We'll understand where the real challenges are. And then what we're going to be doing is focusing on understanding how to increase the reliability, the robustness of this device. And so, what we're going to be focusing on for the next couple of years is how do we design a device that will stay in the water, survive large conditions, and continue operating after those conditions come through?

>> Mark: Now we'd be able to really zoom in and figure out what one of these devices should look like. And now hopefully just take it to the next level as far as building one of these out and designing it, to make it a very efficient and usable device so that maybe we can get closer to that foresight of we need something like this in a disaster relief area.

>> Alec: It's an iterative process. Of course. You know, the first one, works. We have identified our, you know, weaknesses. We've identified strengths. The next one will be better. And the next one will be better. It’s this kind of iteratively adapting to make the next one better and to learn more things and to solve more problems.

>>Narrator: The open-source data collected and shared from this project will not only influence the next iterations of the HERO WEC but can also help propel the industry forward by sharing valuable insights, best practices, lessons learned, and much more.

>> Lindsay Dubbs: I also find it really exciting. Any small role that I can play in helping to get devices into the water, marine energy devices into the water, it needs to happen more often for us to learn, and also for us to have tangible examples to point to, for the public, for them to understand what marine energy is, what marine energy isn't. And also, because this is a device that's developed by NREL, where all of the information is going to be made public, we can be sharing that information very publicly as well.

>>Narrator: Learn more about the exciting future of HERO WEC and its impact on the next generation of wave power desalination at NREL.gov/water.

[Logos for the U.S Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy Water Power Technologies Office, Jennette’s Pier, NREL, and the Coastal Studies Institute, and nrel.gov/water]

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