Design and cost of near-term OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion) plants for the production of desalinated water and electric power. [Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC)]

Conference · Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1990

OSTI ID:6047396

Rabas, T; Panchal, C; Genens, L

There currently is an increasing need for both potable water and power for many islands in the Pacific and Caribbean. The Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) technology fills these needs and is a viable option because of the unlimited supply of ocean thermal energy for the production of both desalinated water and electricity. The OTEC plant design must be flexible to meet the product-mix demands that can be very different from site to site. This paper describes different OTEC plants that can supply various mixes of desalinated water and vapor -- the extremes being either all water and no power or no water and all power. The economics for these plants are also presented. The same flow rates and pipe sizes for both the warm and cold seawater streams are used for different plant designs. The OTEC plant designs are characterized as near-term because no major technical issues need to be resolved or demonstrated. The plant concepts are based on DOE-sponsored experiments dealing with power systems, advanced heat exchanger designs, corrosion and fouling of heat exchange surfaces, and flash evaporation and moisture removal from the vapor using multiple spouts. In addition, the mature multistage flash evaporator technology is incorporated into the plant designs were appropriate. For the supply and discharge warm and cold uncertainties do exist because the required pipe sizes are larger than the maximum currently deployed -- 40-inch high-density polyethylene pipe at Keahole Point in Hawaii. 30 refs., 6 figs., 8 tabs.

• Research Organization: Argonne National Lab., IL (USA)
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE/CE
• DOE Contract Number: W-31109-ENG-38
• OSTI ID: 6047396
• Report Number(s): CONF-901194-9; ON: DE91006406
• Resource Relation: Conference: American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) winter annual meeting, Dallas, TX (USA), 25-30 Nov 1990
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
OCEAN THERMAL ENERGY CONVERSION
ECONOMICS
OCEAN THERMAL POWER PLANTS
DESIGN
SEAWATER
DESALINATION
CLOSED-CYCLE SYSTEMS
DESALINATION PLANTS
ELECTRIC POWER
HYBRID SYSTEMS
POWER GENERATION
RANKINE CYCLE POWER SYSTEMS
STEAM GENERATION
CONVERSION
DEMINERALIZATION
ENERGY CONVERSION
ENERGY SYSTEMS
HYDROGEN COMPOUNDS
INDUSTRIAL PLANTS
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
POWER
POWER PLANTS
POWER SYSTEMS
SEPARATION PROCESSES
SOLAR ENERGY CONVERSION
SOLAR POWER PLANTS
THERMAL POWER PLANTS
WATER
140800* - Solar Energy- Ocean Energy Systems