Demonstration Plan of 1MW OTEC Plant Mounted on Rectangular Barge in the Southern East Sea of Korea

Abstract

Research and development are underway to commercialize Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion(OTEC), to achieve Sustainable Developments Goals(SDGs) in the Equatorial waters. South Korea also started basic research on OTEC from 2010 and completed the 20kW OTEC pilot plant development in 2013. Moreover, performance evaluation and improvement have been on the way based on pilot test and development of key component. Base on this, floating OTEC plant was designed and core parts of1MW OTEC plant were in the process of manufacture. Turbine generator and condensers were already manufactured and evaporators and refrigerant pumps are in manufacturing. After all the key components have been ready to install by the first half of 2019, whole components will be arrayed and assembled on the rectangular barge. Performance evaluation test will be conducted at southern sea area of Korea East Sea. To do this, objective experiment area was selected with collecting and comparing the external environment. And response characteristics of the barge was experimented and analyzed for field experiment of OTEC plant equipped on the barge. To prove the commercialization possibility of 1MW OTEC plant, analysis and comparison of performance efficiency of OTEC plant of different temperature difference between surface and deep sea waters will be conducted during the mid-Summer of 2019, and adaptability of the plant to equatorial waters wil