Performance simulation of solar-boosted ocean thermal energy conversion plant

Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) is a power generation method that utilizes small temperature difference between the warm surface water and cold deep water of the ocean. This paper describes the performance simulation results of an OTEC plant that utilizes not only ocean thermal energy but also solar thermal energy as a heat source. This power generation system was termed SOTEC (solar-boosted ocean thermal energy conversion). In SOTEC, the temperature of warm sea water was boosted by using a typical low-cost solar thermal collector. In order to estimate the potential thermal efficiency and required effective area of a solar collector for a 100-kWe SOTEC plant, first-order modeling and simulation were carried out under the ambient conditions at Kumejima Island in southern part of Japan. The results show that the proposed SOTEC plant can potentially enhance the annual mean net thermal efficiency up to a value that is approximately 1.5 times higher than that of the conventional OTEC plant if a single-glazed flat-plate solar collector of 5000-m(2) effective area is installed to boost the temperature of warm sea water by 20 K. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.