Potential for OTEC (Ocean Thermal) for Electricity Production

2010-11-25 05:35 AM

altenergygeek
Chennai, India
Posts: 7

Amid the excitement that is brewing in the air over solar, wind and biomass based power, some of the lesser known renewable energy sources hardly find a mention or discussion. One of these is the OTEC (or ocean thermal energy conversion).

I could not find too many discussions online for OTEC, except perhaps for posts such as these that explored the potential for OTEC in India.

"While I am sure there are estimates for the potential worldwide for OTEC, I would rather disregard it at the moment because this is a very nascent concept and most such estimates would prove to be close to guessworks!

I’d take estimates for India with the same pinch of salt – however, if you are looking for estimates of potential, I understand MNES has estimate that India has a potential of exploiting between 80,000 – 180,000 MW of OTEC based power. Even if it is 80 GW, it’s not a bad amount, assuming these folks indeed have done a good estimate. We have about 160 GW of installed electricity capacity, so that’s 50% of what we have today.

I’ll tell you why I find the OTEC thing quite interesting, even though it is going to be quite a while before we get the first unit of electricity from it. There are concurrent, non-power benefits from OTEC. These are the ones that Wikipedia lists: Air-conditioning, chilled-soil agriculture, aquaculture, desalination, hydrogen production and mineral extraction" (Source: EAI Blog)

I think the author has a point. OTEC is not just about electricity production, it has beneficial effects beyond power production alone. I think more R&D should be undertaken in this area. What do you think?