Using the power of ocean waves, innovators from Boston, U.S., have developed a technology that can produce fresh water off-grid and without the costly infrastructure of desalination plants. This invention could help many of the 2.1 billion people around the world who struggle to access safe drinking water, most of those in low-income countries. The technology, Wave2O, was developed by start-up company Resolute Marine Energy. Chief Operating Officer Olivier Ceberio says it targets off-grid coastal communities in developing nations where a solution to persistent water shortages is urgently needed. Importantly, it fills a gaping hole between industrial-scale utilities that are costly and time-consuming to build, and micro-scale solutions for individual households. The only technology currently offered in between involves diesel-powered desalination systems. And Wave2O can be delivered competitively because it uses free energy from a consistent and inexhaustible renewable energy resource: ocean waves, says Ceberio. By eliminating the need for diesel generators, the invention not only saves money but reduces carbon dioxide emissions. Each 4,000 [cubic meter per] day plant that displaces an equivalently sized diesel-powered plant will cut CO2 emissions by 4,300 tons per year, explains Ceberio, the equivalent of taking 936 cars off the road or of the carbon sequestered by 2,070 hectares of forest.