Resolute Marine Energy

I. Summary of the Case

The Resolute Marine Energy (RME) is developing technologies that produce clean energy from ocean waves. It was founded by William Staby in year 2007. RME wants to provide the people of Ugu, a municipality in the province of KwaZulu-Natal on South Africa’s east coast, large quantities of fresh water. Together with RME Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Staby and Chief Operating Officer (COO) Olivier Ceberio, believed that RME’s wave-driven desalination system, known as Wave2O™, is the unique solution to this problem.

Over 1 billion people suffer from the effects of water scarcity with the vast majority being poor residents of developing countries. Desalting seawater is an excellent potential solution but reverse osmosis (R/O) desalination systems require a robust connection to an electrical grid to drive the process. Because developing countries typically lack sufficient grid capacity and cannot afford the capital or time required to build and deploy traditional R/O systems, the world’s first wave-driven desalination system (Wave2O™) that can be deployed quickly, operate completely “off-grid” and supply large quantities of fresh water at competitive cost. Wave2O™ harnesses the abundant and inexhaustible energy of ocean waves to directly drive an R/O desalination system. The key technologies that enable Wave2O™ have been rigorously tested at full scale in a series of ocean trials which have proven that Wave2O™ is a reliable and cost effective water production system with utility in multiple places around the world. Wave2O™ utilizes innovative technologies invented by RME for which patent applications have been filed in many countries around the world.

Staby and Ceberio were debating which of the three strategic approaches the company could take as it worked toward commercializing its technology. One approach under consideration was developing a wave-driven desalination system that would produce electricity to power a desalination plant. The...