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Modeling of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) plant in Reunion Island

Article · May 2010

DOI: 10.1115/ES2010-90394

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 Proceedings of the
Proceedings ofASME
ASME 2010
2010 4th
4th International
International Conference
Conference on
on Energy
Energy Sustainability
Sustainability
ES2010
ES2010
May
May17-22,
17-22,2010,
2010, Phoenix,
Phoenix, Arizona,
Arizona, USA
USA

ES2010-0
ES2010-90394

MODELING OF OCEAN THERMAL ENERGY CONVERSION (OTEC) PLANT IN

REUNION ISLAND

Frantz Sinama Franck Lucas

Building Physics and Systems Laboratory Building Physics and Systems Laboratory
(LPBS) – University of La Réunion (LPBS) – University of La Réunion
Saint Pierre, Ile de la Réunion, France Saint Pierre, Ile de la Réunion, France

François Garde
Building Physics and
Systems Laboratory (LPBS) –
University of La Réunion
Saint Pierre, Ile de la
Réunion, France

ABSTRACT NOMENCLATURE
Renewable Energy has a crucial interest for a remote area A Area, m²
like Reunion Island. The supply of electricity based on
Cp Specific heat, kJ/kg-K
renewable energy has many advantages but the major drawback
is the production of electricity which varies highly according to h Specific enthalpy, kJ/kg
the availability of the resource (wind, solar, wave, etc...). This .
causes a real problem for non interconnected electrical grid m Mass flow rate, kg/s
where intermittent renewable energies should be limited to a
maximum of 30%. The Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion NTU Number of Transfer Units
(OTEC) provides an alternative of electricity production from P Pressure, kPa or Pa
the available energy of the oceans present all the time. By using
surface hot water and deep cold water from the ocean, it is qv Volume flow, m3/s
possible to operate a thermodynamics cycle, which will then .

generate electricity. In this article, in the first part a literary and Q Heat transfer rate, kW
technological review is carried out in two areas: electricity s Specific entropy, kJ/kg-K
production and cooling of buildings with deep water. This study
establishes a knowledge base on thermodynamic cycles T Temperature, °C ou K
consistent with the OTEC and on dimensional and functional U Global convection heat transfer coefficient, kW/m²-K
parameters associated with this technology. Steady state
simulations are presented to understand the operation of the UA Overall thermal conductance, kW/K
.
system. Steady state models will evaluate the potential of the
W Power, kW
OTEC in distributing base electricity. These simulations will
help evaluating the potential for new thermodynamic cycles
Greek symbols
such as the Kalina cycle. With these tools, a sensitivity study
will evaluate the influence of different parameters on the cycle. ε Effectiveness
η Efficiency

1 Copyright © 2010 by ASME

Indices off shore factory in Brazil or a proposed OTEC plant in
Abidjan. The problems were that Claude had underestimated
a actual
the power of the wave at the laying of pipes and to maintain
c condensation or cold source them for weather events (storms, hurricanes). As he worked
with his own funds, it was difficult for him to set up projects
e evaporation
and keep them running.
h hot source
Marchand [3] shows that other projects were studied in the
in input
50s, but were not completed because of their low profitability.
is isentropic In 1979, the first 50 kWe closed-cycle OTEC demonstration
plant went up at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii
max maximum
(NELHA) [4]. The plant was mounted on a converted U.S.
min minimum Navy barge moored approximately 2 kilometers off Keahole
Point. The plant produced a net power of 15 kWe .
net net output power
NH3 ammonia In 1981, Japan showed an onshore closed-cycle plant of
100-kWe in the Republic of Nauru in the Pacific Ocean [5].
out output
Freon was the working fluid, and a titanium shell-and-tube heat
pipe pipe exchanger was used. The plant surpassed engineering
expectations by producing 31.5 kWe of net power during
p pump
continuous operating tests.
sat saturation
Since the 90s, experimental projects were conducted by the
tg turbine - generator
NELHA with an open cycle plant of 100 kWe of net power or
1,2,3,4 State points on Sagar Shati, an Indo-Japanese research ship (NIOT-IOES)
with 1 MWe of net power.

INTRODUCTION In the vast areas of the tropical ocean, the temperature

difference between warm water on the surface and deep sea
The oceans cover more than 70 percent of the Earth's
water exceeds 20 °C. This natural phenomenon can be used by
surface. This makes them the world's largest solar energy
OTEC. The resource is widely available, stable and available at
collector and energy storage system. OTEC is an energy
all the time.
technology that converts solar radiation to electric power. The
operating principle is based on the second law of
The exploitation of natural resources using OTEC is that the
thermodynamics and on a Rankine cycle. Indeed, it is possible
world ocean warmed by the sun absorbs heat. The flow of heat
to run an engine to produce work, using the temperature
absorbed is estimated at 52.4 PW or 456,106 TWh / year. A
difference between water on the surface (hot source) and deep
value of Technically Exploitable Potential (TEP) of the global
water (cold source) taken at a depth of 1000 m. The ultimate
resource is given by Avery and Wu. According to these experts,
goal is the production of electricity. There are two major types
it is possible to extract 0.19 MW of solar energy captured per 1
of processes: the closed cycle and the open cycle. Moreover, an
km2 of ocean surface located in the tropical zone most
OTEC plant can be installed on land (onshore) and at sea
conducive to the OTEC holding. This zone extends over 60
(offshore). More details on the cycles are given in the Section
million square kilometers. It is a TEP of 12 TW of electricity
on “ELECTRICITY PRODUCTION”.
which represents 100 000 TWh / year by considering either
onshore or offshore OTEC.
A summary of the history of OTEC through the ages
developed by Avery and Wu [1] shows that it begins in the
The main advantages of OTEC are
19thC with the French physicist Jacques-Arsène d'Arsonval
• A free resource, renewable and available 24/24
who gave the first correct formulation of this technology in an
article published in 1881. Levrat [2] shows that it's one of his • The use of cold water for other activities other than
students, George Claude in 1928 who first materialized an electricity
OTEC plant. It was an open cycle which used as the hot spring • The use of OTEC produces neither waste nor residue,
water, the cooling water a blast furnace in Belgium, and as the toxic to the environment
cold source, the water of the Meuse. It produced 60 kilowatts-
electric (kWe). Between 1928 and 1950, other experiments
followed such as installing a turbine in Cuba, creating the first

2 Copyright © 2010 by ASME


Th,out Th,in
Evaporator
2 3
Turbo-
Feed
alternator
pump
1 4
Condenser
Tc,out Tc,in
Figure 1. Schematic representation of the closed cycle
ELECTRICITY PRODUCTION
There are two types of cycles for electricity production with
OTEC, the closed cycle and the open cycle.
In the closed-cycle OTEC system (Figure 1), the warm seawater
vaporizes a working fluid, such as ammonia, flowing through a
heat exchanger (evaporator). The vapor expands at moderate
pressures and turns a turbine coupled to a generator that
produces electricity. The vapor is then condensed in another
heat exchanger (condenser) using cold seawater pumped from
the ocean's depths through a cold-water pipe. The condensed
working fluid is pumped back to the evaporator to repeat the
cycle. It remains in a closed system and circulates continuously.
Other cycles have been developed to improve the
production of electricity.
The Kalina cycle, developed by Russian engineer Alexander
Kalina, is derived from the Rankine cycle. It does not use pure
ammonia but a mixture of two or more fluids. Generally, the
. mixture used is water / ammonia and has a large temperature
W
gradient. Indeed, the existence of this shift in temperature
reduces the temperature difference between the gas stream
cooling in the steam generator and the working fluid. The
internals irreversibilities due to the temperature gradient are
therefore reduced. [6]
A basic Kalina cycle is represented in Figure 3 and includes
three main elements:
• A steam generator with a reheater
• A turbine
• A distillation and condensation system
Uehara cycle was developed by Professor Dr. Haruo
Uehara. It was developed in order to optimize the power cycle
generation using ocean thermal energy. Professor Dr. Haruo
Uehara demonstrates this new cycle as an improvement of
Kalina cycle. The main feature is about changing the
composition of the ammonia-water mixture by using a staged
expansion with sampling [7]. As for the Kalina cycle, the aim of
this cycle is to replace the evaporation and condensation at
constant temperature with working fluid through changes with
temperature gradient, and thus reduce the irreversibility of the
system

In an open-cycle OTEC system (Figure 2), warm seawater is Steam .

the working fluid. The warm seawater is "flash"-evaporated in a generator Turbo- W
vacuum chamber to produce steam at an absolute pressure of alternator
about 2.4 kPa. The steam expands through a low-pressure Sepa
turbine that is coupled to a generator to produce electricity. The rator
steam exiting to the turbine is condensed by cold seawater
pumped from the ocean's depths through a cold-water pipe. If a
condenser is used in the system, the condensed steam remains Distiller
separated from the cold seawater and provides a supply of
desalinated water.
Reheater 1
Turbo-
alternator
Th,out Tc,in Feedwater Heater Reheater 2
Evaporator Condenser Boiler Condensate
feed pump
Th,in . pump
W Tc,out
Throttle
Condenser Absorber
Freshwater

Figure 2. Schematic representation of the open cycle Figure 3. A simplified Kalina Cycle [8]

3 Copyright © 2010 by ASME

REFRIGERATION AND AIR-CONDITIONING
• Turbo-alternator:
The cold seawater (4 to 6°C) from an OTEC system creates
an opportunity in providing large amounts of cooling to the h3 − h4
operations nearer to the plant. The cold seawater delivered to an η is ,tg = (1)
h3 − h4,is
OTEC plant can be used in chilled-water coils to provide air-
conditioning for buildings. . .
W tg = m NH 3 (h3 − h4 ) (2)
Sea Water Air Conditioning (SWAC) is composed of a heat
exchanger and two loops: the primary loop for deep water and • Pump :
the secondary loop cooling water which is used to provide
v1 (Pe − Pc )
power for buildings. Such projects were carried out in η is , p , NH 3 = (3)
Stockholm under study in Hawaii [9]. The Intercontinental h2 − h1
Hotel is the first private building to be fitted with a SWAC
. .
system which has been working since 2006 and the W is , p , NH 3 = m NH 3 (h2 − h1 ) (4)
characteristics of the plant are given in Table 1 [10].
• Condenser:
SWAC features
. .
Qc = m NH 3 (h4 − h1 )
Length of the pipe 2300 m
(5)
Diameter of the pipe 400 mm
Depth pumping 900 m
Cold water flow 270 m3/h • Evaporator:
Cooling power installed 1.5 MWf
. .
Pumping power 15 kW Qe = m NH 3 (h3 − h2 ) (6)
Table 1. SWAC features of the Hotel Intercontinental in Bora Bora

STEADY STATE SIMULATION For heat exchanger, in steady state condition, the NTU-ε
method of heat exchanger analysis can be used [15].
The study of the cycle is based on a Rankine cycle with
With this method, it is possible to determine the outlet
ammonia as working fluid. This is one of the best fluids for low
temperature of the heat exchanger with these equations:
temperatures used by the cycle. Moreover, the pressure of the
ammonia fluid in the cycle is not very high. . In this paper, the
hot source is the sea water of temperature of 28 ° C taken at 40 • maximum heat transfer:

Q max = m NH 3 Cp min (Th,in − Tc,in )

m deep. The cold source is cold water thoroughly taken at 1000 . .
m at 5°C [11]. The mass flow rates are adjusted to the surface of (7)
exchange and power provided.
The following general assumptions are made in the
thermodynamics analysis: • effectiveness:
• The heat and friction losses are neglected in the cycle. .
• The pressure losses in the heat exchanger are also Qa
ε= .
(8)
neglected. Q max
• The ammonia at the condenser exit is a saturated

Where Q a = m NH 3 Cp h (Th,in − Tc ,out ) = m NH 3 Cpc (Tc ,in − Tc ,out )

liquid. . . .

More detailed assumptions on heat exchangers and sea

The effectiveness can be defined using the NTU:
water pumps are given later.
UA
The steady state simulation is performed with EES (Engineering NTU = .
(9)
Equation Solver) [12]. This software has many advantages for m NH 3 Cp min
thermodynamics analysis: a solver for non linear equation and a In our case, for evaporation and condensation, the temperature
fluid properties library [13]. phase change is constant; the effectiveness can be reduced to:
The modeling cycle uses these equations taking consideration
the assumptions listed above [14]: ε = 1 − exp(− NTU ) (10)

4 Copyright © 2010 by ASME

Figure 4. Evolution of the gross power based on the performance of
the turbine
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In this section, the results of a parametric study for an
ammonia closed cycle using the previous model are presented.
For each case presented, one parameter becomes a variable
while all others stay constant.
The varying parameters concern the components of the cycle.
They are as follows:
• for the turbo-alternator: the pressures and the
efficiency
• for the heat exchangers: the area
• for the pumps: the flow rate
To analyze the cycle, each input variable is compared to a
single output variable, the turbine’s power, which is the gross
power of the cycle.
The cycle parameters that stay constant are as follows:
• Thermodynamic properties of fluids
• The temperatures of the sources
• The pressures at input and output of the pipes of
seawater
• The depth of the inlet water for the two sources
• Global convection heat transfer coefficient of the heat
exchanger
This will be a first approach on the influence of these
parameters on the overall behavior of the cycle.
The first parameter analyzed is the efficiency of the turbine-
generator. The gross power depends on the turbo-alternator
efficiency (Figure 4). This variation is linear and increases with
the efficiency. It seems logical that the cycle is more efficient
when the performance of the components increases.
The value of this efficiency will depend on the overall
performance desired and on the component used. In fact, it
helps to obtain a minimum value of performance to be achieved
for a better selection of components.
Figure 5. Evolution of the gross power based on the evolution of
the turbine inlet pressure
The second parameter studied is the pressure: at the inlet
and outlet of the turbine.
When the inlet pressure of the turbine is increased, an
increase of the gross power may be observed as shown in Figure
5. Indeed, the pressure increases up to a limit. This value
corresponds to a critical point for the working fluid from the
temperature of evaporation of the fluid itself and the efficiency
of the turbine.
Figure 6 shows how the global efficiency decreases when
the output pressure of the turbine increases. It is therefore
preferable to work with low pressure so that the working fluid
condenses at a low temperature. This pressure corresponds to
the pressure of condensation and is determined by the
condenser's size. Note also that the inlet temperature of cold
water limits the minimum temperature of condensation.
The two results above show that the applied pressure at the
turbine affect the global efficiency of the cycle. Indeed, to
obtain the gross power sighting, a sufficient pressure difference
must be maintained between the terminals of the turbine.
Figure 6. Evolution of the gross power based on the evolution of
the turbine outlet pressure
5 Copyright © 2010 by ASME
 Figure 8: Evolution of the gross power based on the area of the
evaporator

This study will allow cost evaluation to obtain better

performance. For example, an increased flow rate of hot water
can help to achieve better results on the thermodynamic
efficiency, but will affect the cost of the pump and power and
thus the overall performance of the cycle. This may applied for
the length of the column suction for cold water intake. In fact,
from a temperature of 5 to 4 ° C, the efficiency increases by
15%. The system will limit factors in the quest for maximum
power; the parametric study will help to find what those
elements are.
Figure 7. Evolution of the gross power based on the evolution of Since April 2009, under an agreement with the regional
the mass flow of ammonia. council, a French company achieves a feasibility study on
implementing a demonstrator of an OTEC power plant of 1
The third parameter studied is the mass flow rate of the MW net power offshore the Reunion Island [17]. It represents a
working fluid, considering this influence on the gross power. gross power of 1.6 MW. Through the parametric study, this
Figure 7 shows how the gross power increases as the mass power was sighted to get an idea on the input and output
flow rate of ammonia rises. The more the working fluid flow parameters. A simulation was conducted with these parameters
rate increases the better the heat exchange will be and the work and results are given in Table 2.
of the turbine. This is also due to the fact that the cold and hot
temperatures are fixed, and therefore the evaporating and
Input Parameters
condensing temperatures are fixed. The mass flow rate should
Hot water temperature 28 °C
be adjusted according to the required power. Note that it will
Cold water temperature 5°C
depend in on the size and the cost of the turbine.
UA of heat exchanger 300 kW/K
The last parameter studied is the surface exchangers. The Ammonia mass flow 40 kg/s
exchange area has minimum influence on gross power as shown Turbine efficiency 0.85
in Figure 8 for the evaporator for example. Indeed, it may be Pressure turbine inlet 950 kPa
seen that when the exchange area is doubled, the performance Outlet pressure turbine 660 kPa
slightly increases. It may be observed that when the exchange Feed pump efficiency 0.65
surface was determined (or UA), it had minimum influence on Sea water pump efficiency 0.75
the performance of the cycle. Another step will be to model Output Settings
more improved exchangers in order to test multiple Cycle efficiency 3%
technologies to evaluate which is the most suitable for an Gross Power Output 1.6 MW
OTEC. Temperature hot water 24.5°C
Cold Water Temperature 10.5 °C
The parametric study showed which parameters have a Table 2. : Parameter for a 1.6 MW OTEC plant.
significant impact on the performance of the system. It helps to
size the best possible system based on expected performance. CONCLUSION
The ocean thermal energy conversion has real potential in
the world. The ocean is a nearly inexhaustible resource and it
should be exploited to its full extent.
The technology applied has been known for years and has
been used in other areas. Many studies have been conducted
like Avery or Takahashi [18] and shows the multiple benefits of
the OTEC, which main advantages are described throughout
this article.
Many projects have been studied worldwide, but few were
successful. The main obstacle was the high cost of installation
compared to a conventional system using fossil fuels. But the
current situation in the world, announced the increase of the
cost of a barrel of oil, now shows the competitiveness of the
OTEC.

6 Copyright © 2010 by ASME

 In Reunion Island (an island depending on fossil energies)
the energy situation and its geographical position encourages
the use of renewable energy. Using OTEC would be an
additional source of basic energy in the energy mix of the
island.
The simulation in steady state has provided an initial
approach to better understand and control the operation of the
plant as a source of basic energy.
The simulation in dynamic state would be an interesting
thing to perform. .The behavior of the OTEC plant will be seen
as a source of extra energy (for peak consumption). But this
model will also be coupled to external elements for related
activities such as air conditioning with SWAC or conduct
annual reviews of electricity. The parametric study has allowed
first optimization for a closed cycle. The results clearly show
that the optimization parameters can improve the performance
of the cycle. However, an exergy analysis using the Gibbs
method, on each component of the cycle, will be made to better
optimize the cycle.
Other optimizations may be considered after testing other
new fluids, new cycle as the Kalina cycle, or increasing the
temperature difference (eg increase in temperature of hot source
with thermal solar panels), to improve performance and
therefore electricity production.
Under the offshore demonstrator project, a plan for
minimizing risks is made by this French company itself. Part of
this plan is to establish with the University of La Reunion
(LPBS), the regional council and this French company, an
agreement for the design and installation of onshore
demonstrator, the "Prototype à Terre ETM" (PAT) . This
demonstrator will be installed on the site of the University in
Saint Pierre. In theory, it will provide a power of 15 kilowatts.
Studies have already begun and the commissioning of this
demonstrator is planned for the second half of 2011 at the
University. The objectives of the PAT are:
• Tool validation for models
• Justification for choice of the offshore demonstrator
cycle (Rankine, Kalina, ...)
• Validating the behavior of different technologies of
heat exchangers
• Validating the use of ammonia in all life’s cycles of the
process
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors acknowledge the support of Professor Bernier,
M, Ecole Polytechnique Montreal for the steady state
simulation.
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7 Copyright © 2010 by ASME
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8 Copyright © 2010 by ASME