Ocean thermal energy conversion is one of the promising renewable energy resources yet relatively unexplored due to its high capital cost for being utilized in commercial scale. In the aim to reduce the capital cost, this paper introduces a concept design of the floating structure from a converted oil tanker ship. To propose the design process, the general principles of designing a converted tanker FPSO is adapted and then modified to deal with ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) characteristic. In the design process, the arrangement of the OTEC layout is carried out by constraint satisfaction method and the prospective floating structure size is varied using Monte Carlo simulation. The variables in the design process consist of the velocities of cold water and warm water transport, the size of the plantship, and the location of the OTEC equipment to the seawater tank. Constraints are introduced as allowable border to determine the acceptability for particular case including the provided space and buoyancy, and the net power output estimation. The results show that the ‘typical’ size of a Suezmax oil tanker ship is the optimum one for the plantship with the velocity of the water transport of 2–3 m/s. The general arrangement is also conceptualized in this paper.

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) using non-azeotropic mixtures such as ammonia/water as working fluid and the multistage cycle has been investigated in order to improve the thermal efficiency of the cycle because of small ocean temperature differences. The performance and effectiveness of the multistage cycle are barely understood. In addition, previous evaluation methods of heat exchange process cannot clearly indicate the influence of the thermophysical characteristics of the working fluid on the power output. Consequently, this study investigated the influence of reduction of the irreversible losses in the heat exchange process on the system performance in double-stage Rankine cycle using pure working fluid. Single Rankine, double-stage Rankine and Kalina cycles were analyzed to ascertain the system characteristics. The simple evaluation method of the temperature difference between the working fluid and the seawater is applied to this analysis. From the results of the parametric performance analysis it can be considered that double-stage Rankine cycle using pure working fluid can reduce the irreversible losses in the heat exchange process as with the Kalina cycle using an ammonia/water mixture. Considering the maximum power efficiency obtained in the study, double-stage Rankine and Kalina cycles can improve the power output by reducing the irreversible losses in the cycle.

Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) uses the natural thermal gradient in the sea. It has been investigated to make it competitive with conventional power plants, as it has huge potential and can produce energy steadily throughout the year. This has been done mostly by focusing on improving cycle performances or central elements of OTEC, such as heat exchangers. It is difficult to choose a suitable heat exchanger for OTEC with the separate evaluations of the heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop that are usually found in the literature. Accordingly, this paper presents a method to evaluate heat exchangers for OTEC. On the basis of finite-time thermodynamics, the maximum net power output for different heat exchangers using both heat transfer performance and pressure drop was assessed and compared. This method was successfully applied to three heat exchangers. The most suitable heat exchanger was found to lead to a maximum net power output 158% higher than the output of the least suitable heat exchanger. For a difference of 3.7% in the net power output, a difference of 22% in the Reynolds numbers was found. Therefore, those numbers also play a significant role in the choice of heat exchangers as they affect the pumping power required for seawater flowing. A sensitivity analysis showed that seawater temperature does not affect the choice of heat exchangers, even though the net power output was found to decrease by up to 10% with every temperature difference drop of 1 °C.

Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) harvests the power from the thermal energy in the ocean, which is reserved in the ocean as the temperature difference between warm surface and cold deep seawaters. In the energy conversion, the heat exchangers transfer the thermal energy to the heat engine, which converts it into power. The pressure drops yielded by piping, valve and heat exchangers cause pump loads, which show significant negative power with respect to net power in OTEC. The heat transfer performance and the pressure drop in heat exchanger depend on the types and shapes of each heat transfer area. Generally, heat exchangers with higher friction factors yield higher heat transfer performance and vice versa. However, heat transfer performance and pressure drop are separately evaluated and there is no comprehensive performance evaluation index for OTEC power take-off. Therefore, this research proposes a new simplified overall performance evaluation method for heat exchangers, which can be comprehensively and easily applied and takes into consideration the heat transfer performance and the pressure drop. The evaluation results on plate-type heat exchangers show that the overall performance in each heat exchanger are elucidated and are quantitatively compared.

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) converts heat energy into electricity using the 20 to 27 °C temperature difference between warm seawater at the surface and cold seawater in the depths. In this paper, a simulation model for an OTEC plant, which uses the Uehara cycle with an ammonia–water mixture as working fluid, is constructed based on the mass balance and the heat balance. A method of initial value determination for numerical simulation is developed. The accuracy of the simulation model was evaluated by comparison with the experimental results of an OTEC basic experimental equipment. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 176(2): 1–13, 2011; Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI 10.1002/eej.21138

Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) converts the thermal energy stored in the ocean temperature difference between warm surface seawater and cold deep seawater into electricity. The necessary temperature difference to drive OTEC heat engines is only 15–25 K, which will theoretically be of low thermal efficiency. Research has been conducted to propose unique systems that can increase the thermal efficiency. This thermal efficiency is generally applied for the system performance metric, and researchers have focused on using the higher available temperature difference of heat engines to improve this efficiency without considering the finite flow rate and sensible heat of seawater. In this study, our model shows a new concept of thermodynamics for OTEC. The first step is to define the transferable thermal energy in the OTEC as the equilibrium state and the dead state instead of the atmospheric condition. Second, the model shows the available maximum work, the new concept of exergy, by minimizing the entropy generation while considering external heat loss. The maximum thermal energy and exergy allow the normalization of the first and second laws of thermal efficiencies. These evaluation methods can be applied to optimized OTEC systems and their effectiveness is confirmed.