OTEC

 

Introduction

There is abundance of low grade waste heat, especially in the temperature difference between surface and the deep ocean. These are presently unexploited resource which could be the future sustainable energy resource. This project proposes to develop a working ORC Turbine to harvest low grade renewable heat energy system from the ocean.  The new ORC Turbine heat conversion technology need to be developed and improved to take advantage of the necessary increase in the supply of low grade heat renewable energy. The Organic Rankine Cycle is well suited for this application, mainly because of the availability of low-grade ocean heat and the possibility that this system can be implemented in Advanced Hybrid Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) and any other decentralized lower-capacity low-grade power plants.

Objective

  1. To design, build and test a prototype of 3 kW output capacity
  2. Optimization and implementation of 3 kW ORC Turbine system into the overall OTEC system

The project will be implemented in the following manner: 

Phase 1 – Design & simulation (1 Year)

The first phase will include multiple conceptual designs and analysis of the ORC Turbine that will utilised temperature difference of the ocean thermal energy. This will include modelling and numerical simulations of the workings of the ORC Turbine.

Phase 2 – Fabrication & testing of 3 kW turbine PROTOTYPE (1 Year)

The best performing design from phase 1 will be built and tested Aerolab UTM Skudai.

Phase 3 – Design and build FULLY OPERATING 3 kW turbine system (1 Year).

Turbine will be installed and integrated to overall OTEC system. The system will be fully instrumented to be enable field testing and evaluation based on the real environment to obtain its performance data.

Phase 4 – Optimize and integration into OTEC system (2 Years)

The ORC Turbine will be refined and optimized based on the field data of the previous phase, and re-installed and commission OTEC system for continuous field operations.

Schedule

  Task Period
1. Fabricate Lab scale Turbine 2020-07-01 — 2020-12-31
2. Fabricate test rig with instrumentation 2020-07-01 — 2020-12-31
3. Testing of Lab scale Turbine 2021-01-01 — 2021-06-30
4. Design & Construction of 3 kw Turbine 2021-07-01 — 2021-03-31

 Milestone

Milestone Date
1. Completion of Lab scale Turbine & Test Rig 2020-12-31
2. Compilation of Design & Lab-scale Final Report 2021-06-30
3. Completion of 3 kW Turbine Prototyping 2021-12-31

Schematic drawing

 

Report & parts description

  1. Project progress report 1

Literature review

  1. Design and build of a 1 kilowatt Organic Rankine cycle power generator
  2. Design analysis of ORC micro-turbines making use of thermal energy of oceans
  3. Experimental investigation on an ammonia-water based ocean thermal energy conversion system
  4. Turbine Design for Low Heat Organic Rankine Cycle Power Generation using Renewable Energy Sources