Five teams are advancing in the $1.75 million Water Abundance XPRIZE, a two-year competition aimed at tackling global water scarcity.

Sponsored by Australian Aid and the Tata Group, the Water Abundance XPRIZE challenges teams to create and develop pioneering technologies that can extract a minimum of 2,000 liters of water per day from the atmosphere using 100 percent renewable energy, at a cost of two cents per liter.

Clean, affordable drinking water is a challenge in many parts of the world. The five finalists were chosen based on submissions of technical documentation, test results, and video of a solution prototype that can extract water from the atmosphere using any source of energy and without any requirement for minimum water output cost per liter. The five finalists will share a $250,000 milestone prize purse.

The five advancing teams are:

Hydro Harvest Operation (Newcastle, Australia) – Led by the University of Newcastle’s Professor Behdad Moghtaderi, the team is developing what they say is a simple, energy-efficient and cost-effective device to give communities worldwide the ability to harvest their own fresh water.

JMCC WING (South Point – Island of Hawaii) – Led by James McCanney, M.S., the team is powering the JMCC WING, LLC line of industrial Atmospheric Water Generators (AWGs) with a high-efficiency wind energy system, to extract water from the atmosphere.

Skydra (Chicago, IL) – Led by Jacques Laramie, Nathan Taylor, and Chris Wlezien, the team uses a hybrid solution that utilizes both natural and engineered systems to condense water out of the air.

Uravu (Hyderabad, India) – Led by Swapnil Shrivastav, the team is developing an off-grid water-from-air device, combining material sciences and solar thermal energy.

The Veragon & ThinAir Partnership (London, United Kingdom) – Led by Laura Dean, the team has developed a partnership with the key objective of revolutionizing the capability of Atmospheric Water Generators to deliver high quality, mineralized drinking water at the point of need.

The Water Abundance XPRIZE finalists were chosen from a field of 98 teams by an international and independent judging panel of seven industry experts in mechanical engineering, water treatment, ocean energy, strategic design and emerging technologies.

Judges include: Mike Claerhout, RGL Reservoir Management; Nicholas Davis, World Economic Forum; David Ginley, Ph.D., National Renewable Energy Laboratory; Eric Hoek, Ph.D., Water Planet; David Ireland, Ph.D., ThinkPlace; Purnima Jalihal, Ph.D., National Institute of Ocean Technology, India; and Matthew Stuber, Ph.D., University of Connecticut and WaterFX.

The finalists will begin Round 2 testing in July 2018 at a location to be determined. At the end of this testing phase, the team whose solution enables the greatest ability to create decentralized access to water -will receive the Grand Prize of $1.5 million, to be announced in August 2018.