HARNESSING POWER FROM THE OCEAN

spar-drawing-rendering Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) makes use of the vast solar energy stored in the upper layers of the ocean. The concept is simple—heat from the warm surface water is used to vaporize ammonia, which turns a turbine to drive a generator to produce electricity. Deep, cold ocean water cools the ammonia back to liquid to be heated again in a 24/7, 365-days-a-year cycle.

The devil, of course, is in the engineering details. OTEC has been developing for 130 years. It was tested and proven technically feasible in the early 1980s.  Given OTEC International’s (OTI) leading edge technology and engineering, combined with the precarious global fossil fuel situation, it is now ready for the commercial market.

HARNESSING POWER FROM THE OCEAN

With 11 patents pending, OTI has its eye on being first to market and the global leader in OTEC power generation.  OTI projects do not rely on government subsidies to be commercially attractive.  OTI power plants are designed to be competitive with fossil fuel alternatives.

As fossil fuel supplies dwindle, competition for them increases, along with the price.

OTI has substantially advanced the technology of OTEC, and is honored to have earned the ABS (American Bureau of Shipping) first-ever “approval-in-principle” for a floating renewable energy plant.  The approval-in-principle, issued in May 2011, attests to both the experience and the sound ocean engineering of the OTI plans.

OTEC ON THE WAY

The approval-in-principle comes while OTI is negotiating with Hawaiian Electric Company for a power purchase agreement that would install a 100-megawatt plant offshore of O‘ahu, the island chain’s center of population. Final negotiations are underway with The Caribbean Utilities Company, Ltd. for a 25 MW facility.

OTI plans to develop a small 1MW on-land power plant in Hawai‘i to demonstrate the OTEC power cycle before it undertakes the capital intensive offshore, deep-ocean floating platform.  This 1MW pilot plant will demonstrate the OTEC power cycle and the scalability of the technology in the near term, enabling OTI to proceed to commercial scale projects more quickly.

OTI is privately funded by The Abell Foundation to market and develop commercial OTEC projects.