The U.S. Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) announced its plan to invest nearly $2 million for projects at two universities to advance research on wave-powered technology to desalinate seawater. These projects focus on harnessing wave energy to produce clean drinking water.
“The United States holds tremendous wave energy resources that can be harnessed to produce clean drinking water and support coastal energy needs as well as power offshore work and electricity grids,” said WPTO Director Matthew Grosso. “These projects will advance systems to produce drought-resistant drinking water for coastal communities and in disaster-relief situations.”
The D.O.E. reports U.S. wave energy resources are equivalent to 34% of the country’s electricity generation. Even if only a portion of this technical resource potential is captured, wave energy technologies would make significant contributions to U.S. energy needs.
Purdue University in Indiana, will develop a wave-powered, pumpless, seawater desalination system that uses hydraulics instead of electricity. Hydraulics use the movement and pressure from fluid—in this case, water—to filter and produce clean drinking water. Researchers aim to maximize the system’s efficiency and minimize operations and maintenance costs.
The University of Minnesota, based in Minneapolis, will advance a power take-off system for a wave-powered desalination system designed to produce both electricity and clean drinking water. The power take-off system converts the power from waves to generate electricity and generates direct hydraulic pressure to produce clean drinking water.
The wave-powered desalination system can operate independently and with minimal disruptions by having this dual capability to generate electricity and hydraulic pressure and can power other auxiliary processes and systems in utility-scale desalination plants. Researchers aim to increase the amount of water the system can produce, decrease the size of certain components, and reduce the cost of the power take-off system. Project partners include the University of Michigan and Novus Technical Services.
The projects were selected through WPTO’s Marine Energy Systems Innovation at Sea funding opportunity. Seven projects were initially selected through this opportunity in July 2023, and these additional projects were selected due to the availability of additional funds.
