World’s first offshore ocean heat energy platform installed to replace 25 GW fossil power
https://interestingengineering.com/energy/first-ocean-heat-energy-platform-installed-offshore
World’s first offshore ocean heat energy platform installed to replace 25 GW fossil power
https://interestingengineering.com/energy/first-ocean-heat-energy-platform-installed-offshore
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A UK clean energy firm, Global OTEC, on Wednesday announced it has completed the offshore installation of a floating prototype platform in the Canary Islands.
This marks the first purpose-built system designed to generate continuous electricity from ocean temperature differences at sea.
Floating system moves from concept to ocean trials
The newly installed platform sits off the coast of the Canary Islands, at the Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands (PLOCAN), a marine testing site in Spanish waters. Engineers deployed and connected a vertical seawater intake riser, a key structure that draws cold water from deep below the surface. This step is widely seen as the most complex part of building an offshore Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion system.
The title is so misleading. No this singular platform does not replace 25 GW of electricity generation capacity. There’s no information but I would guess it produces at best maybe 25 MW. The 25 GW number is a projection of maybe “one day” all of the intallations combined displacing fossil generation but that is a fanciful prospect for a technology that is basically in a pilot stage.