• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.36 no.8
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• pp.1151-1157
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• 2012

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion(OTEC) technology is one of the new and renewable energy that utilizes the natural temperature gradient that exists in the tropical ocean between warm surface water and the deep cold water, to generate electricity. The selection of working fluid and the OTEC cycle greatly influence the effect on the system operation, and it's energy efficiency and impacts on the environment. Working fluids of the OTEC are ammonia, R22, R407C, and R410A. In this paper, we compared boiling pressure to optimize OTEC system at $25^{\circ}C$. Also, this paper showed net-power and efficiency according to working fluids for closed cycle and regeneration cycle.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.52-57
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• 2013

In this paper, an analysis on exergy efficiency of high-efficiency R717 OTEC power system for the efficiency and pressure drop in main components were investigated theoretically in order to optimize the design for the operating parameters of this system. The operating parameters considered in this study include turbine and pump efficiency, and pressure drop in a condenser and evaporator, respectively. As the turbine efficiency of R717 OTEC power system increases, the exergy efficiency of this system increases. But pressure drop in the evaporator of R717 OTEC power system increases, the exergy efficiency of this system decreases, respectively. And, in case of exergy efficiency of this OTEC system, the turbine efficiency and pressure drop in a condenser on R717 OTEC power system is the largest and the lowest among operation parameters, respectively.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.22-29
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• 2010

The concept of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) is simple and various types of OTEC have been proposed and tried. However the location of OTEC is limited because OTEC requires $20^{\circ}C$ of temperature difference as a minimum, so most of OTEC plants were constructed and experimented in tropical oceans. To solve this we proposed the modified OTEC which uses condenser discharged thermal energy of existing fossil or nuclear power plants. We call this system CTEC (Condenser Thermal Energy Conversion) as this system directly uses $32^{\circ}C$ partially saturated steam in condenser instead of $20{\sim}25^{\circ}C$ surface sea water as heat source. Increased temperature difference can improve thermal efficiency of Rankine cycle, but CTEC should be located near existing plant condenser and the length of cold water pipe between CTEC and deep cold sea water also increase. So friction loss also increases. Calculated result shows the change of efficiency, pumping power, net power and other parameters of modeled 7.9 MW CTEC at given condition. The calculated efficiency of CTEC is little larger than that of typical OTEC as expected. By proper location and optimization, CTEC could be considered another competitive renewable energy system.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.73-81
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• 2014

Ocean thermal energy conversion(OTEC) is a power generation method that utilizes temperature difference between the warm surface seawater and cold deep sea water of ocean. As potential sources of clean-energy supply, Ocean thermal energy conversion(OTEC) power plants' viability has been investigated. Therefore, this paper evaluated the thermodynamic performance of solar-OTEC convergence system for the production with electric power and desalinated water. The comparison analysis of solar-OTEC convergence system performance was carried out as the fluid temperature, saturated temperature difference and pressure of flash evaporator under equivalent conditions. As a results, maximum system efficiency, electric power and fresh water output show at 40, 10, 2.5 kPa of the flash evaporator pressure, respectively. And their respective enhancement ratios were approximately 6.1, 18, 8.6 times higher than that of the base open OTEC system. Also, performance of solar-OTEC system is the highest in the flash evaporator pressure of 10 kPa.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.43-49
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• 2013

The use of ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) to generate electricity is one of the methods proposed to utilize renewable energy and to protect the environment. In this study, simulations were performed to investigate the effect of weather conditions in the Ulsan region, Korea, on the efficiency of a solar-heating OTEC (SH-OTEC) system. This system utilizes solar thermal energy as the secondary heat source. Various working fluids were also simulated to select one that is suitable for this system. The results showed that R152A, R600, and R600A, in that order, were the most suitable working fluids. The effective area of the solar collector for a $20^{\circ}C$ increase in the collector outlet temperature fluctuated from 50 to $97m^2$ owing to the change in the monthly average solar gain. The annual average efficiency of the SH-OTEC increases to 6.23%, compared to that of a typical conventional OTEC, which is 2-4%.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.38-43
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• 2014

In Ocean, the temperature of the deep sea water is always lower than that of the surface sea water. The temperature difference between the surface water and deep sea water is about $20^{\circ}C$. Based on thermodynamics, this temperature difference can be converted into mechanical power. The mechanical power can be converted to electricity through a generator. However, the temperature difference is relatively small compared with that of traditional steam turbines. It is difficult to apply the steam turbine technology for this small temperature difference directly. Therefore, the turbine for OTEC system using low temperature difference should be designed to meet the system requirement. The present study focuses on the development of the turbine for 20 kW OTEC system using R32. The paper includes the determination of working fluids, meridional design, turbine layout and 3D CFD results. With off-design points analysis, the full performance of 20kW OTEC turbine is investigated. Through the research, one stage radial type turbine with R32 as working fluid is successfully developed and can be applied to other high temperature heat source.

• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.309-325
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• 2013

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) systems utilize the temperature difference between the surface water and deep ocean water to generate electrical energy. In addition to ocean surface waves, wind and current, in certain locations like the Andaman Sea, Sulu Sea and the South China Sea the presence of strong internal waves may become a concern in floating OTEC system design. The current paper focuses on studying the dependence of the CWP hydrodynamic drag on relative velocity of the flow around the pipe, the effect of drag amplification due to vortex induced vibrations and the influence of internal waves on the floating semi and the cold water pipe integrated OTEC system. Two CWP sizes are modeled; the 4m diameter pipe represents a small scale prototype and the 10m diameter pipe represents a full commercial size CWP. are considered in the study.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.36 no.8
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• pp.1036-1042
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• 2012

This paper describes an analysis on exergy efficiency of R744 OTEC power system to optimize the design for the operating parameters of this system. The operating parameters considered in this study include subcooling and superheating degree, evaporation and condensation temperature, and turbine and pump efficiency, respectively. The main results are summarized as follows : As the evaporation temperature, superheating degree, and turbine and pump efficiency of R744 OTEC power system increases, the exergy efficiency of this system increases, respectively. But condensation temperature and subcooling degree of R744 OTEC power system increases, the exergy efficiency of this system decreases, respectively. The effect of evaporation temperature and pump efficiency on R744 OTEC power system is the largest and the lowest among operation parameters, respectively. Therefore, the refrigerant temperature in the evaporator must be closely to the surface seawater temperature to enhance the exergy efficiency of R744 OTEC power system.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.45-50
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• 2014

In this paper, the Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion(OTEC) with vapor-vapor ejector is proposed newly. At this OTEC system, a vapor-vapor ejector is installed at inlet of condenser. The vapor-vapor ejector plays a very important role in increasing of the production work of low-stage turbine throughout the decrement of outlet pressure of ejector. The performance analysis is conducted for optimizing the system with HYSYS program. The procedure of performance analysis consists of outlet pressure of high turbine, the mass ratio of working fluid at separator, total working fluid rate, and nozzle diameters of vapor-vapor ejector. The main results is summarized as follows. The nozzle diameter is most important thing in this study. When each nozzle diameter of vapor-vapor ejector is 10 mm, the efficiency of OTEC system with vapor-vapor ejector shows the highest value. So it is necessary to set the optimized nozzle diameters of vapor-vapor ejector for achieving the high efficiency OTEC power system.

• Proceedings of the SAREK Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.1267-1272
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• 2008

OTEC power plants are studied as a viable option for the supply of clean energy. In this paper, the thermodynamic performance of OTEC system was calculated. The results show that the working fluids such as R32 and R125 would be alternatives based upon cutting down the system size, environmental preservation, and conditions without having a severe penalty in efficiency. the initial cost significantly. The regeneration system increase in energy efficiency, and the system can generate electricity when the difference in warm and cold seawater inlet temperatures are greater than $15^{\circ}C$. Also, the system efficiency of OTEC power plant using the condenser effluent from nuclear power plant instead of the surface water increased about 2%.