The news source for Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC)

  by L. A. Vega, Ph.D., Hawaii, USA.

Previous: Design of a Small Land-Based OC-OTEC Plant

Closed cycle OTEC

The operation of a closed-cycle OTEC plant, using anhydrous ammonia as the working fluid, is modeled with the saturated Rankine cycle. Figure 3 shows a simplified flow diagram of the CC-OTEC cycle.  The analysis of the cycle is straightforward.  Based on a unit mass flow rate of ammonia vapor (kg s^-1) in the saturated cycle:


where, h is the enthalpy at the indicated state point.  It follows that the heat-added plus the pump-work is equal to the heat-rejected plus the turbine-work.

Next: Design of a Pre-Commercial Floating Hybrid-OTEC Plant

© 1999. L. A. Vega. All rights reserved.
Published here with the kind permission of the author.