Abstract
Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) could be an important source of renewable base-load energy for tropical islands and would assist in relieving their present dependence on imported fossil fuels, particularly oil.
The importance of land-based OTEC installations is stressed for islands having a steeply shelving coast and which may, therefore, be able to exploit the ocean thermal resource close to shore. Plants of this type are currently in the design stage and these, together with a 100 kW pilot plant which recently completed successful trials on the Pacific island of Nauru, are described in this paper.
The ability to utilise land-based plants for co-production, i.e., the generation of electricity plus freshwater production or mariculture, is emphasised and a computer cost-modelling simulation which was undertaken to determine the potential financial return from such a type of operation is described.