Journal of Marine Engineering & Technology

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Conceptual design of a 5 MW OTEC power plant in

the Oman Sea

Amir-Sina Hamedi & Sadegh Sadeghzadeh

To cite this article: Amir-Sina Hamedi & Sadegh Sadeghzadeh (2017) Conceptual design of a
5 MW OTEC power plant in the Oman Sea, Journal of Marine Engineering & Technology, 16:2,
94-102, DOI: 10.1080/20464177.2017.1320839

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JOURNAL OF MARINE ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY, 2017
VOL. 16, NO. 2, 94–102
https://doi.org/10.1080/20464177.2017.1320839

Conceptual design of a 5 MW OTEC power plant in the Oman Sea

Amir-Sina Hamedi a and Sadegh Sadeghzadehb
a Department of Energy, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran; b School of New Technologies, Iran University of Science and Technology,
Tehran, Iran

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Developing ocean energy extraction, including ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC), has been Received 24 April 2016
of interest to researchers for many decades. OTEC is a free fuel technology and could be used as Accepted 13 April 2017
a baseline power generation. These advantages plus the engineering challenge have resulted in
researchers striving to design and construct prototype devices. Making use of worldwide experi-
ence, all sections of a conceptual design including site selection, technical specifications and cost
estimation were carried out for an Iranian OTEC power plant. A 5 MW closed cycle floating plant with
an annual average temperature difference of 22°C was chosen at a 33 km distance from Chabahar
harbour. Deep seawater would be extracted from 1000 m depth and would result in 3.52 MW of net
power. According to cost calculations, the levelised cost of electricity of the plant has been estimated
to be approximately 0.117 $/kWh, which is an acceptable level compared to other renewables. The
conceptual OTEC design presented in this paper demonstrates a thermal potential in the Oman Sea
which could assist with meeting the power demand for the southern coast of Iran.

1. Introduction OTEC technology can utilise different power produc-

Increased worldwide energy consumption, environmen-
tal concerns and the oil crisis of the 1970s have intensified
interest in exploiting renewable energy. Oceans and seas
provide inspiration for engineers to utilise energy of sea-
water in various ways. These ways can be divided into two
main areas: wave energy (mechanical) and temperature
difference (thermal). However, today, researchers have
in general focused more on wave energy than thermal
energy conversion.
Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) is a sys-
tem which uses the temperature difference between warm
surface seawater and cold deep seawater to drive a
working fluid in a Rankin cycle to produce electricity.
The warm seawater evaporates a working fluid, typically
ammonia, in a heat exchanger and the cold seawater,
which is extracted from 500 to 1000 m depth, is used to
condense the ammonia vapour after it has driven a tur-
bine. Surface seawater varies with a range of 24–30°C
depending on season, while deep seawater often does not
change significantly by season and remains fairly steady
in the range of 5–9°C. An average temperature differ-
ence of 20°C is needed to drive the Rankin heat engine
and produce an approximately constant base-load power
(Griekspoor 1981).
tion cycle types. Closed cycle runs a heat engine by gener-
ating a pressure difference in a working fluid. Open cycle
OTEC uses seawater as the working fluid by providing
a relative vacuum in the heat exchanger generating low-
pressure steam. Also a combination of closed and open
cycles, named Kalina, uses both water and ammonia as
working fluids. Other variations for OTEC technology
include location. Onshore units are land-based and off-
shore units are either free floating/grazing or moored to
the sea bed.
OTEC technology generates electricity continuously
and could be used as a base-load power plant, which is
a major advantage compared to other renewable energies
including solar and wind. The resource of ocean thermal
energy is worldwide, which means this technology could
provide benefit to many nations. Although there are some
potential adverse effects including possible release of CO2
absorbed in seawater and fish entrapment, depending on
intake grill design, OTEC technology is considered to be
environment-friendly (Ruud Kempener (IRENA), Frank
Neumann (IMIEU) 2014).
Since a test plant up to 1 MW capacity has been
installed, the present main challenges of developing
OTEC are deployment of the water duct system and

CONTACT Sadegh Sadeghzadeh sadeghzadeh@iust.ac.ir

© 2017 Institute of Marine Engineering, Science & Technology

 JOURNAL OF MARINE ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY 95

heat exchangers at a 5 MW or greater size and also the
lack of long-term operating experience (Ruud Kempener
(IRENA), Frank Neumann (IMIEU) 2014). The location
of Iran near seas with OTEC potential encourages us to
develop a conceptual design of an OTEC plant to provide
energy for coastal regions.
2. OTEC technology progress
2.1. History
The idea of OTEC dates back to the nineteenth century
when a French physicist, Jacques d’Arsonval, suggested a
system which converts the temperature difference within
seawater to generate electricity by means of a heat engine.
This idea was discarded until 1925 when one of his
students, Georges Claude, built the world’s first OTEC
plant in Cuba (Uehara et al. 1988). Due to energy crisis
of the 1970s, interest in constructing large-scale OTEC
prototypes was reignited. Companies and organisations
in the US and Japan built test OTEC plants and urged
other countries, including the UK and Sweden to become
involved in OTEC projects. In Table 1 there is a list of sig-
nificant OTEC plants which have been or are planned to
be installed worldwide.
As Table 1 demonstrates there is no record of OTEC
utilisation, either prototype or in large scale in Iran, thus,
this paper aims to explore the thermal potential of the
seas around Iran and also to develop a conceptual design.
2.2. Design parameters
The components of an OTEC open cycle are shown in
Figure 1: condenser, evaporator, turbo-generator, pumps,
piping and power cables. In an open cycle, warm water
from surface seawater flows through a flash evapora-
tor drum. The developed vacuum causes seawater to
evaporate at the relatively low seawater intake tempera-
ture of 24–30°C. The vapour flow drives a low-pressure
turbine and generator and then condensed in a drum
by pumped deep seawater. This drum also is vacuumed
to facilitate condensing. The discharged water from the
condenser could be used for cooling systems such as air
conditioning or as fresh water, which introduces multi-
product OTEC plants, which can improve profitability.
The major difference between closed and open cycle
is the working fluid (a refrigerant, mostly ammonia, in
closed cycle), which alters the plant equipment arrange-
ment. In the closed cycle, ammonia is condensed and
evaporated by deep cold seawater and surface warm sea-
water, respectively. In these two drums the pressure is
high due to the boiling point of ammonia at the intake
seawater temperature range. This pressure difference
between evaporator and condenser makes ammonia
vapour flow through the turbine and generate electricity.
Efficiency is a key parameter which influences whether
or not a technology is feasible. Due to Carnot and Rankin
efficiency and other losses at the turbo-generator and
pumps, the energy conversion efficiency associated with
OTEC technology is low. Although a typical Carnot
efficiency of an OTEC plant is about 6–8%, the real
cycle efficiency is estimated at between 2% and 4%
(Lavi 1980).
Enormous quantities of cold and warm seawater are
needed to run an OTEC plant, which also requires sub-
stantial heat exchangers and pipes. However, because the
warm and cold seawater is effectively a free fuel and due
to progress in heat exchanger and pipe material design
and manufacture, large-scale OTEC plants are now start-
ing to reach the stage of economic viability in comparison
to other renewable energies, particularly in areas where
electricity, fresh water and air conditioning costs are
high.

Table 1. Important worldwide installed or planned OTEC power plants (Ravindran 2000; Wikipedia contributors 2015a).
Nominal or nameplate
Location power output Description
Hawaii 50 kW One of the oldest plant, 1979, closed cycle, Lockheed Missile and Space Co.
Japan/Nauru 120 kW Installed in 1982 by Tokyo Electric Power Services Company
Hawaii 1 MW A land-based plant, open cycle, operating between 1993–1998 by LLC and NELHA
Japan/Okinawa 50 kW A land-based plant using for power generation and research on other applications of OTEC, installed
in 2013 by Xenesys, IHI and Yokogawa
Hawaii 10 MW Working with the U.S. Navy and the Department of Energy, Lockheed Martin has invested $15 million
over the past three years toward the technology need for and the design of a 10 MW prototype plant
to validating the technologies necessary for small- to large-scale (100 MW or greater) commercial
sized OTEC power plants
India/Tuticorin south India 1 MW A floating closed cycle plant was attempted by the National Institute of Ocean Technology, India.
Difficulties in connecting the 1 km cold water pipe due to lack of marine infrastructure led to closure
of the project
Southern China 10 MW The 10 MW prototype offshore plant will be the largest planned OTEC project until 2017. Like the
Hawaii project, which was also to be a 10 MW facility, the China OTEC plant is designed to pave the
way for higher capacity plants ranging from 10 to 100 MW
Martinique/Bellefontaine 10 MW Floating platform, planned to operate from 2016, DCNS France
96 A.-S. HAMEDI AND S. SADEGHZADEH

Figure 1. OTEC open cycle schematic.

3. Conceptual design
3.1. Site selection
This section investigates an appropriate site for an OTEC
plant installation making use of Iran’s long 2700 km
coastline (Wikipedia contributors 2015b). The major
concern is water depth since the water depth in Caspian
Sea and Persian Gulf (near the shore) is limited to 200 m.
Hence it was easy to put aside these two options and
instead investigate the Oman Sea (Wikipedia contribu-
tors 2015c). Heading to the east in the Oman Sea, the
depth increases up to 3400 m near Chabahar harbour
(Wikipedia contributors 2015b). Therefore, this area was
investigated further to assess the temperature profile and
depth near the harbour to find an appropriate site.
Unfortunately, there is no sufficient data for depth
and temperature profile for the Oman Sea in standard
references. Therefore, it was necessary to use somewhat
less comprehensive data. Figure 2(a,b) presents 10 years
average of the Oman Sea water temperature and average
variation temperature of the Arabian Sea (nearest sea to
the Oman Sea) for both summer and winter, respectively.
According to the 2000–2010 average vertical temper-
ature profile, the water temperature at 300 m is 17.5°C,
so there is a need to go deeper to reach the required cold
seawater. Unfortunately, deep seawater temperature data
for this area are not found in standard references. There- Figure 2. Seawater temperature difference of the Oman Sea (a)
fore, it was necessary to use the general sea temperature and the Arabian Sea in depth and various seasons (b) (Piontkovski
profiles as seen in Figure 3. and Chiffings 2014).
 JOURNAL OF MARINE ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY 97

conceptual design to use these data to estimate the tem-

Figure 3. General deep seawater temperature profiles for differ-
ent latitudes the Atlantic Ocean (Piontkovski et al. 2012).
perature at depths of 500, 750 and 1000 m in the Oman
Sea at 9°C, 7°C and 5°C, respectively. Based on Figures 2
and 3 it was possible to prepare Table 2.
As Table 2 demonstrates, the 22°C temperature dif-
ference probably exists at 1000 m depth. Therefore, the
next stage was to inspect the nearest area to the Chaba-
har harbour to identify a 1000 m depth location for cold
water extraction. To find this site Google earth maps was
utilised.
From Figure 4, three sites near Chabahar were iden-
tified which have 500, 750 and 1000 m water depth. Due
to the illustrated reasons, site 3 was chosen as the cold
water extraction site is 33 km far from the harbour and at
1000 m water depth a temperature of 5°C is expected to
be available.

Table 2. Annual temperature difference of Oman Sea at depth

difference of 500, 750, 1000 m by seasons.
3.2. Technical specification

500 m 750 m 1000 m The distance of deep cold seawater extraction point to
July 19.7 21.7 23.7 shore would restrict the feasibility of an onshore plant,
June 21.2 23.2 25.2 as capital costs are increased by the 33 km cold water
January 15.3 17.3 19.3
February 15.6 17.6 19.6 pipe distance as well as associated reduction in thermo-
Average (°C) 17.95 19.95 21.95 dynamic efficiency. Hence, an offshore platform was cho-
sen to minimise costs. If open cycle should be selected,
the condenser discharged water could have other appli-
Figure 3 shows that both mid-latitudes and trop- cations such as provision of fresh water or for use in
ics temperature below 600 m water depth are approxi- cooling systems. Since there is no island near this site to
mately the same. Hence, it was judged acceptable for a deliver discharged water, plus constructing an open cycle

Figure 4. Three site features in the Oman Sea near the Chabahar harbour. Image © 2015 CNES/Astrium; Data SIO, NOAA, U.S. Navy, NGA,
GEBCO; © Google; Image © 2015 DigitalGlobe.
98 A.-S. HAMEDI AND S. SADEGHZADEH

Table 3. Ammonia physical properties (Ammonia (data page) Carnot and cycle efficiency is estimated via the follow-
2015 June 5). ing equations:
Parameter Value
THot − TCold 22
Formula NH3 ηcarnot = = = 0.073,
Molecular weight 17.031 g/mole THot 300
Boiling point (1 bar) –33.3°C

Boiling point (5 bar) 10°C W TCold
Boiling point (10 bar) 25°C ηcycle = =1− (1)
Latent heat 1187 kJ/kg
Q THot
Specific density 0.662 
278
=1− =0.037.
300
demands more capital cost, selecting a closed cycle plant To calculate water intake flow rate Equation (2) is
was preferable. Therefore, a 5 MW offshore closed cycle applied as follows:
OTEC plant was selected.
A refrigerant needs to be identified to act as the work- P 5000 kJ/s
ing fluid in a closed cycle system. Anhydrous ammonia Qc = =  6435 kg/s,
ηCTc 0.037 × 4.2 × 5 (2)
is the most common and available refrigerant; thus, it is
Qh  10725 kg/s.
important to check ammonia’s physical properties for the
site-specific operating conditions. Average temperature difference between inlet and out-
According to Table 3 ammonia’s boiling point at 1 bar let cold and hot seawater is 5°C and 3°C, respectively, and
is –33.3°C. Considering that the cold water intake tem- cycle efficiency as mentioned previously is assumed to
perature is 5°C, providing a –33.3°C temperature is not be 3.7%. Thus, the seawater flow rate in the condenser
possible. Hence, it is necessary to change the condenser and evaporator becomes around 6430 and 10,720 kg/s,
and evaporator operating pressures to adjust ammonia’s respectively.
boiling and condensing points to the two seawater intakes The selected heat exchanger material plays a key role
temperature. Table 3 shows ammonia’s condensing and with respect to estimating heat transfer area. Dissolved
boiling points at 5 and 10 bar which are 10°C and 25°C, salts and air make seawater corrosive; thus, utilising a
respectively, which match the cold and warm seawater corrosion-resistant material with high heat transfer coef-
temperatures. The closed cycle operating condition is ficient has been studied in many marine journals. Tita-
illustrated in Figure 5. nium grade 1 has better characteristics than other metals

Figure 5. Operating condition of the proposed closed cycle OTEC plant.

 JOURNAL OF MARINE ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY 99

Table 4. Thermo-fluid parameters compared to other published designs.

Parameter Value Unit Other notes
Working fluid Ammonia
Inlet/outlet water temperature difference 3 and 5 °C 3.1 and 5.8 in Magesh (2010) and Vega (2002)
Seawater flow rate 10,720 kg/s 13,900 kg/s for a 8 MW plant in Uehara et al. (1988)
Heat exchanger material Titanium and steel alloy Titanium in Upshaw (2012) and Griekspoor (1981)
LMTD 4 and 5.4 °C 2.89 and 4.37 in Siahaya and Salam (2010)
Overall heat transfer coefficient 4 kW/m2 K 4 in Magesh (2010)
Condenser heat transfer area 8446 m2 10,400 for a 5 MW plant in Uehara et al. (1988)
Evaporator heat transfer area 6255 m2
Ammonia flow rate 114 kg/s 137 in Uehara et al. (1988)

and polymers (Griekspoor 1981) and the overall heat

transfer coefficient is in order of 4 kW/m2 K. However,
some chemicals including chlorine should be added peri-
odically to prevent microorganism build up in the heat
exchangers. Another determinant variable is logarithmic
mean temperature difference (LMTD). This parameter is
an average between seawater inlet and outlet temperature
and condensing or boiling points, which is calculated as
Equation (3):

(Tcon − Tc,in ) − (Tcon − Tc,out ) Figure 6. Plate and frame evaporator sizing.
LMTDC =  
Tcon −Tc,in
Ln Tcon −Tc,out
(3) due to high turbulence and easy cleaning for plate heat
= 4◦ C, exchangers, thus the bio-fouling factor is low and as a
LMTDH = 5.4◦ C. result, an improved heat transfer coefficient is obtained.
Moreover, in a constant duty application, a plate heat
LMTD for the condenser and evaporator is 4°C and exchanger takes up less space than a shell and tube; there-
5.4°C, respectively, and the heat transfer area is estimated fore, in a restricted space floating plant, selecting a plate
by Equation (4) as follows: heat exchanger is desirable.
Due to limitations in plate numbers in heat exchang-
P ers, the size needs to be optimised. Assuming four plate
AC = heat exchangers each for the condenser and evapora-
ηULMTDC
tor, there would be about 603 and 447 plates for the
5000
=  8446 m2 , (4) condenser and evaporator, respectively (with each plate
kW
0.037 × 4 m2 C × 4 active area of 3.5 m2 ) – see derivation below:
AE  6255 m2 .
A 8446
NC = = = 603 plates,
According to Equation (3) the heat transfer area a×n 3.5 × 4
(6)
for the condenser and evaporator would become 8445 A 6255
and 6255 m2 , respectively. The working fluid flow rate NE = = = 447 plates.
a×n 3.5 × 4
is another major parameter which is calculated by
Equation (5): The dimensions of the heat exchangers are illustrated
in Figure 6.
QE = AULMTDE = ma LHa . (5) The last part of the technical design relates to pip-
ing and pumps. There are many potential compositions
This can be calculated to be 114 kg/s. To validate and and alloys for pipes including steel, aluminium, plastic,
compare the overall values, the last column of Table 4 concrete and fibres composites. Due to seawater’s cor-
provides some variables which exist in other references. rosive nature and pipe scaling effect, the most resilient
One of the most substantial factors in cost estimation composition was selected to resist bio-fouling. Plastic or
relates to the heat exchangers. There are many different fibre-reinforced composites are suitable due to capability
types of heat exchangers but for the present application, for in-site extrusion and flexibility, which can resist the
plate and frame heat exchangers are preferred. This is sub-sea flows (Griekspoor 1981; Vega 2002).
100 A.-S. HAMEDI AND S. SADEGHZADEH

Table 5. Thermo-fluid pipe and pump parameters.

Parameter Value Unit Comparison with other designs
Evaporator plate dimensions (each) 1.75*2*5.58 m 31.27 m2 (5 MW onshore) (Uehara et al. 1988)
Condenser plate dimensions (each) 1.75*2*7.53 m 4.6*1*6.1 (4 MW) (LUISA)
Cold water pipe 2.8 (1000 m length) m 7.5 m for 10 MW plant in Griekspoor (1981)
Hot (warm) water pipe 3.7 (20 m length) m 7 m for 25 MW plant in Uehara et al. (1988)
Pipe composition Fibre-reinforced composites fibre-reinforced composites in Griekspoor (1981)
Cold water pump flow rate 6.43 m3 /s
Hot (warm) water pump flow rate 10.72 m3 /s
Cold water pump power 793 kW
Hot (warm) water pump power 515 kW
Working fluid pump power 172 kW
Net power output 3520 kW 3660 for a 5 MW plant in Uehara et al. (1988)
Mixed effluent pipe diameter 4 m
Mixed effluent pipe depth 60 m

There are two parts of head loss in seawater pipes, Table 6. CAPEX estimation (Cavrot 1993; Magesh, 2010; Ruud
which needs to be made up by pumps. One is piping fric- Kempener (IRENA), Frank Neumann (IMIEU), 2014).
tion and the other is head loss in the heat exchangers. By Parameter Cost per unit Cost ($)
estimating head loss, seawater intake pumps power can Heat exchanger 500 $/m2 7,350,000
be estimated. It is possible to decrease pumping power Turbo-generator 700 $/kW 3,500,000
Pump 1000 $/kW 1,480,000
by increasing pipe diameter. Typically, there is a limita- Seawater pipe 500 $/m 540,000
tion on inlet fluid velocity (normally around 1 m/s) to Platform 1100 $/kW 5,500,000
Cabling (33 km) 700 $/kW 3,500,000
avoid heat exchanger seal damage and also to account Rankin cycle 1000 $/kW 5,000,000
for material resistance. Moreover, to mitigate possible Other costs 20% of total 5,374,000
environmental issues, warm and cold seawater would Total 32,244,000
normally be mixed and discharged at a moderate water
depth; thus, a 4 m diameter pipe was designed to dis-
charge the mixed warm and cold seawater at a 60 m Considering a discount rate (i = 8%) and a project
water depth. Pipes and pumps parameters are presented lifetime (n = 25 y) the cost recovery factor (CRF) can be
in Table 5: calculated. The other affecting parameter is the capacity
factor (CF), which addresses the period of year the plant
will be fully operational producing net power. According
3.3. Cost estimation to Lavi (1980), CF could be assumed to be 0.9. Therefore,
To investigate OTEC technology investment feasibility, the LCOE is calculated as follows:
it is necessary to estimate the levelised cost of electric-  
$
ity (LCOE) and compare this with other possible power LCOE
plant technologies. LCOE is divided into two main costs: kWh
⎡
⎤
capital cost (CAPEX) and operating cost (OPEX). To CAPEX[$] × CRF [yr−1 ] + OPEX yr$
have a more precise cost evaluation it is desirable to use =⎣
 ⎦
a dynamic model, which is defined in more details in the Welectricity [kW] × 8760 hr
yr × CF
references. To avoid excessive length, in this paper all that
32, 244, 000 × 0.0936 + 1, 816, 000
is reported are the final calculations. =
Considering cost estimations for real OTEC projects 5000 × 8760 × 0.90
all over the world, and considering lower construction = 0.117 $/kWh. (7)
costs in Iran the calculated capital cost for each com-
ponent and the final CAPEX value are summarised in There is a summary of economic parameters from
Table 6. other designs compared to the ones present in Table 7.
Due to free fuel, the OPEX estimation is divided into Table 8 includes LCOE of common power plant tech-
two parts including labour cost and maintenance. Sev- nologies which can be compared to LCOE for the OTEC
enteen personnel support a floating 5 MW OTEC plant, plant described in this paper.
with each receiving a salary of 12,000 $ per year. Main- According to Table 8 OTEC technology has lower
tenance costs have been estimated at 5% of the total LCOE in comparison with solar PV and offshore wind
capital cost per year. Thus, these two costs would become and hence in due course is likely to be considered seri-
204,000 and 1,612,000 $ per year, respectively. ously as an alternative renewable energy technology.
 JOURNAL OF MARINE ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY 101

Table 7. Economic parameters estimation. Based on the conceptual design presented in this
Comparison with other paper, constructing a 5 MWe floating closed cycle OTEC
Parameter Value Unit designs power plant, located at a site relatively close to Chabahar
Gross power 5 MW harbour is proposed.
Net output power 3.52 MW
Capital cost 32,244,000 $ 42 $M for a 5 MW plant (Vega),
95–167 $M for a 25 MW
plant (Uehara et al. 1988) Disclosure statement
Operating cost 1,816,200 $/yr 2 $M for a 5 MW plant (Siahaya No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
and Salam 2010), 6$M for
a 28 MW (Magesh 2010),
1.6 $M for a 5 MW plant
(Uehara et al. 1988) ORCID
CRF 0.0936 yr−1 Amir-Sina Hamedi http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1363-7823
CF 0.90 In range of 0.75–1 (Lavi 1980)
LCOE 0.117 $/kWh 0.076 $/kWh in (Lavi 1980),
14.1–18.3 $/kWh for an
onshore 5 MW plant (Uehara References
et al. 1988)
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