While experiments with OTEC have persisted in fits and starts ever since the late 19th century, they have been continually hampered by a number of debilitating factors, including the difficulty of pumping huge amounts of cold water from the ocean’s depth and the fact that the process requires a temperature gap of at least 20 degrees Celsius to work, confining it to a thin belt of tropical and sub-tropical areas around the equator.
Recent scientific advances promise to overcome these hurdles however, and make OTEC a more economic and practical source of renewable energy.
Scientists are focusing in particular on combining OTEC with other forms of renewable energy, such as solar power or geothermal power, to enhance its potential and render it effective in a broader range of environmental conditions.
The engineers at the Korean Ocean Research & Development Institute (KORDI) are also investigating the possibility of adding geothermal energy to the mix, which would enable them to heat up water for OTEC usage on a 24-hour basis.
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