Performance assessment for high temperature OTEC plant

Abstract

As an alternative to Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC), a power generation system using the temperature difference between a high-temperature waste heat source hotter than the sea surface and ocean deep water relatively colder than the existing cold heat source was suggested in this study. A sufficient temperature difference between the heat sources is known to be essential for effective power generation and thus plays an important role in a power generation system. A 200 kW closed-circuit high-temperature-difference OTEC plant was designed and built for a field test of high-temperaturedifference OTEC in this study. The working fluid that was used was R245fa, and the hot and cold heat sources had 75 and 5°C temperatures, respectively. The heat exchangers (i.e., the evaporator and the condenser) used titanium oxynitride coating (SPCC) that is highly resistant to seawater corrosion. The total output was designed to be 200 kW. The system was installed at the Ocean Deep Water Research Center located in Goseong-gun, Gangwon-do. To conduct a performance evaluation of this pilot plant, the performance results according to the temperature difference between the heat sources were compared based on the analysis results in the design process. ？ 2016 Taylor & Francis Group, London.