NAME: ANTESH JAIN

BRANCH: ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING

ROLL NO: 2016031011

OCEAN THERMAL ENERGY CONVERSION

INTRODUCTION: Most of the electricity we use comes from heat engines of one kind or
another. A heat engine is a machine that cycles between two different temperatures, one hot and
one cold, usually extracting heat energy from a fuel of some kind.

In OTEC, we use the temperature difference between the hot surface of the ocean and the cooler,
deeper layers beneath to drive a heat engine in a broadly similar way—except that no fuel is
burned: we don't need to create a difference in temperature by burning fuel because a temperature
gradient exists in the oceans naturally! Since the temperature difference is all-important, we need
the biggest vertical, temperature gradient we can possibly find (at least 20° and ideally more like
30–40°). In practice, that means a place where the surface waters are as hot as we can find and the
deep waters (perhaps 500–1000m or 1000–3000ft beneath ) are as cold as possible.

WORKING: There are essentially two different kinds of OTEC plant.

 Closed cycle: In closed-cycle OTEC, there is a long, closed loop of pipeline filled with a
fluid such as ammonia, which has a very low-boiling point (−33°C or 28°F). (Other fluids,
including propane and various low-boiling refrigerant chemicals, have also been
successfully used for transporting heat in OTEC plants.) The ammonia never leaves the
pipe: it simply cycles around the loop again and again, picking up heat from the ocean,
giving it up to the OTEC power plant, and returning as a cooled fluid to collect some more.
 Open cycle: In open-cycle OTEC, the sea water is itself used to generate heat without any
kind of intermediate fluid.