W2EW · New combined solution to harness wave energy full renewable potential for sustainable electricity and fresh water production

With 96.5% of all water on Earth being on the ocean, there is a theoretical ocean wave energy potential of 2000 GW of installed capacity, which could contribute to decarbonizing the energy system, expanding the water supply through desalination and creating a new industry with export opportunities worldwide. However, this opportunity remains underexplored due to remaining technological, market, environmental and social challenges. With wave energy still in the pre-commercial development stages, the EU setting a target of 337 GW of installed wave by 2050 and a direct EU economic impact of drought events in the past 30 years estimated at a minimum of € 100BN, there is a unique opportunity for strong industrial cooperation towards the deployment of solutions to address the twin challenges of energy and fresh water shortage. Leveraging on a strong consortium vision, expertise and technologies, the W2EW project aims to deliver a world beating and first of a kind wave powered technology solution – W2EW solution – to the market. The solution relies on the innovative integration of wave energy and water desalination technologies, to produce zero-emission electricity and fresh water.The main goal of this project is to integrate the partners technologies, demonstrate the combined solution, and build the market to pave the way for broad market roll-out. Thirty-three months after project start the consortium plans to roll out the W2EW solution on off grid small-scale energy and water production in islands and isolated coastal communities with up to 100,000 inhabitants, which corresponds to a potential market of 22Bn EUR for electricity and 6Bn EUR for freshwater. After 2025 we intend to extend the customer base of the W2EW solution to the large-scale utilities for production of renewable energy and/or water desalination, to be an alternative and/or to operate in synergy with offshore wind and solar PV.