History
Attempts to develop and refine OTEC technology started in the 1880s. In 1881, Jacques Arsene d'Arsonval, a French physicist, proposed tapping the thermal energy of the ocean. D'Arsonval's student, Georges Claude, built the first OTEC plant, in Matanzas, Cuba in 1930. The system generated 22 kW of electricity with a low-pressure turbine.
In 1935, Claude constructed a plant aboard a 10,000-ton cargo vessel moored off the coast of Brazil. Weather and waves destroyed it before it could generate net power. (Net power is the amount of power generated after subtracting power needed to run the system).
In 1956, French scientists designed a 3 MW plant for Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. The plant was never completed, because new finds of large amounts of cheap petroleum made it uneconomical.
In 1962, J. Hilbert Anderson and James H. Anderson, Jr. focused on increasing component efficiency. They patented their new "closed cycle" design in 1967.
Japan is a major contributor to the development of the technology. Beginning in 1970 the Tokyo Electric Power Company successfully built and deployed a 100 kW closed-cycle OTEC plant on the island of Nauru. The plant became operational on 14 October 1981, producing about 120 kW of electricity; 90 kW was used to power the plant and the remaining electricity was used to power a school and other places. This set a world record for power output from an OTEC system where the power was sent to a real power grid. Currently, the Institute of Ocean Energy, Saga University, is the leader and focuses on the power cycle and many of the secondary benefits.
The United States became involved in 1974, establishing the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority at Keahole Point on the Kona coast of Hawaiʻi. Hawaii is the best US OTEC location, due to its warm surface water, access to very deep, very cold water, and high electricity costs. The laboratory has become a leading test facility for OTEC technology.
India built a one-MW floating OTEC pilot plant near Tamil Nadu, and its government continues to sponsor research.
Read more about this topic: Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion
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