Lockheed Martin To Build World’s First Ocean Thermal Power Plant Off China Coast

May 5th, 2013 by Joshua S Hill

Lockheed Martin have been working for forty years on harnessing energy from the massive temperature differentials in the ocean, and thanks to a partnership between the US defense and aerospace giant and a Chinese resort developer, a 10-megawatt power plant using ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) will be built off southern China’s Hainan Island.

The agreement has been signed between Lockheed Martin and the Beijing-based Reignwood Group and will hopefully see the power plant completed by 2017. The power plant will provide 100% of the power necessary to run the resort, which will be marked as a low-carbon real estate development.

An artist’s conception of a pilot plant off China’s coast that will supply a resort with electricity generated from differences in ocean temperatures.
Image Credit: Lockheed Martin

As one of our readers clarifies: “OTEC uses warm surface water to vaporize a fluid with a low boiling point, typically ammonia or propane, and pumps cooler water from depths of up to 1000 meters below the surface to re-condense the fluid. The movement of the liquid through the system is enough to continually power a turbo-generator. The simplistic nature of the station, which behaves almost like a gigantic internal combustion engine, allows OTEC power plants to be largely self-sufficient. And unlike wind and solar energy, which have a fluctuating output that changes according to the weather and the time of day, the regularity of ocean temperatures and movements provide a far more stable and consistent source of power. “

Lockheed has been testing the technology for several years at a site in Hawai’i in partnership with Makai Ocean Engineering, the Energy Department and the US Navy, however several obstacles kept the idea from growing into a full-scaled power plant, according to sources familiar with the testing program.

While Lockheed Martin moves on to develop with the Reignwood Group, Makai Ocean Engineering will continue its partnership with the US Navy. According to Duke Hartman, a spokesperson for Makai Ocean Engineering, the Pentagon has retained its goal of developing a 5 to 10 MW pilot plant off the island of Oahu, and hope to eventually create a commercial plant of up to 100 MW.

“The Navy wants a thriving OTEC industry because they would benefit from it,” Hartman said. Imagine being able to tow a semisubmersible power plant to almost any corner of the world, he added.

While Lockheed have had to look internationally for partners to further develop OTEC technology, Dan Heller, Lockheed Martin’s vice president of new ventures for Mission Systems and Training, has noted that there are several sites in the US that have demonstrated potential for commercial OTEC Plants, including Hawai’i and Florida.

Source: Scientific American

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Tags: China, lockheed martin, ocean, ocean thermal power, Thermal Power

About the Author

Joshua S Hill I'm a Christian, a nerd, a geek, and I believe that we're pretty quickly directing planet-Earth into hell in a handbasket! I also write for Fantasy Book Review (.co.uk), and can be found writing articles for a variety of other sites. Check me out at about.me for more.

Lauren@greenglobaltravel

Show support for Lockheed, I don’t live too far from there
Pingback: Energy Storage On The Bottom Of The Ocean -- New Pumped Hydroelectric Power Storage Design | CleanTechnica
http://twitter.com/lisagrandelash Lisa Waldrup

The oceans aren’t that hot, how do they get from surface temps to steam? That will require gas or some kind of energy input. Why not have this on land with a supply line running out to deeper waters?
http://www.facebook.com/anumakonda.jagadeesh Anumakonda Jagadeesh

It is heartening to note this. In fact ENERGY ISLAND concept of utilising OTEC,Solar,Wind and Hydrogen developed by Dominic Michele and his group will open up new possibilities of harnessing OTEC.

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion uses the temperature difference between surface and deep-sea water to generate electricity – and though it has an efficiency of just 1-3% – researchers believe an OTEC power plant could deliver up to 250MW of clean power, equivalent to one eighth of a large nuclear power plant, or one quarter of an average fossil fuel power plant. Architect and engineer Dominic Michaelis and his son Alex, along with Trevor Cooper-Chadwick
of Southampton University are developing the concept with plans of putting the theory to the test on an unprecedented scale by building a floating, hexagonal Energy Island that will harness energy from OTEC, as well as from winds, sea currents, waves, and the sun.

The US National Renewal Energy Laboratory estimates that the world’s tropical seas absorb the solar power equivalent of 250 billion barrels of oil per day. OTEC uses warm surface water to vaporize a fluid with a low boiling point, typically ammonia or propane, and pumps cooler water from depths of up to 1000 meters below the surface to re condense the fluid. The movement of the liquid through the system is enough to continually power a turbo-generator. The simplistic
nature of the station, which behaves almost like a gigantic internal combustion engine, allows OTEC power plants to be largely self-sufficient. And unlike wind and solar energy, which have a fluctuating output that changes according to the weather and the time of day, the regularity of ocean temperatures and movements provide a far more stable and consistent source of power. As the Energy Island site states, despite being 100 years old, OTEC is in its infancy.
But given the renewed interest, and the multitude of various benefits, it’s possible that the next 100 years of this concept could profoundly change the energy and environmental management of the Earth.

Dr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore(AP),India
Tom G.

I forgot to add this link which shows where the best OTEC area are. Page down the brochure to see the areas.

http://www.lockheedmartin.com/content/dam/lockheed/data/ms2/documents/OTEC-brochure.pdf
Tom G.

I believe Joshua Hill must be offline or he probably would have revised the story by now, the part which says “heating warm surface water to produce steam” part.

In the case of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) systems the so-to-speak boiler uses the unheated warm surface ocean water to boil a liquid like ammonia. This ammonia vapor then powers a typical turbine generator set. This is commonly referred to as the HOT side of a power plant. Not much different than a coal, natural gas or nuclear power plant – it just runs at a much lower temperature.

The COLD side of a OTEC power plant used deep ocean water to cool the ammonia vapor back into a liquid so the whole generation process can be repeated over and over again. The cold ocean water comes from a depth of about 2000-3000 feet below the oceans surface. In various locations around the world this can result in a 20-40 degree temperature difference which can makes OTEC financially feasible.

It is a good concept but requires massive amounts of water to work efficiently since there is such a small difference between the HOT side of the power plant and the COLD side. It is however, carbon free, works 24/7/365, and is fuel free renewable energy. Sometimes people forget that our oceans are just one gigantic solar panel since the sun heats the surface water. Finding economical ways to use that solar energy is the challenge but it can be done.
- wildsky
  
  Although we’re unlikely to extract enough energy to balance the current oceanic heat sink effect, it’s nice to think that the by-product will be reversing some of global warming’s harm.
CTMATT

Guess I missed the line in this story about just how they will be heating the ocean surface water “Ocean thermal power involves heating warm surface water to produce steam that drives a turbine generator”. Makes the rest of the article a little superfluous.
jburt56

The first OTEC plant was built in 1930–

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_thermal_energy_conversion
Bill_Woods

“Ocean thermal power involves heating warm surface water to produce steam that drives a turbine generator.”

If so they’re doing it wrong. The usual plan is to use some liquid with a low boiling point like ammonia for the working fluid.
- Ronald Brakels
  
  They could simply be using cold water to improve the efficiency of another method of generation, but the word on the street is that this project will use ammonia and a heat exchanger. Mind you, I live on a pretty weird street.
jburt56

Indonesia.
http://www.facebook.com/matthew.t.peffly Matthew Todd Peffly

How far off the island, one of the by products of OTEC is lots and lots of cold water to run chiller (air conditioning) even after you generate the electric. In fact in a hot location there is as must NRG there as in the electric, plus it is much more efficient to use the chilling than to generate electric and then run air conditions that extract cold from the hot air.
In fact I saw somewhere that one of the small islands in the pacific skipped the electric and just used the cold water for chilling.