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Honolulu SWAC
Honolulu Weekly has an article about the $240 million sea water air-conditioning system (SWAC) which is being built for Honolulu.

"Groundbreaking is expected next summer and the first 40 buildings are expected to come online in late 2012. " And there are investors from Stockholm involved, which is interesting, as one of the first systems in the world was built in Stockholm (where I live) and this is being expanded.

Labels: hawaii, swac

posted by Thomas Bjelkeman at 00:16

Jamaica Observer on OTEC and SWAC
An article in the Jamaica Observer talks about OTEC and Seawater Air Conditioning (SWAC) and specifically mentions SOS Caribe (Soluciones Sostenibles) as wanting to implement SWAC in the Dominican Republic for an ice cream company.

Labels: Dominican Republic, otec, swac

posted by Thomas Bjelkeman at 14:35

NY Times on OTEC and SWAC

The New York Times carries an article about OTEC, focusing on Lockheed Martin's work in Hawaii. There is also a blog piece on the potential for using seawater for air-conditioning (SWAC) in the same location. The piece has the normal sceptic questions: "?just how economical it can be.? and "?[SWAC] doesn't work for high-rises with individualized air-conditioning units,?

I would argue that SWAC indeed works for high-rises with individual aircon units. Why shouldn't it work in Honolulu when it works in Stockholm? You just have to get away from the fear of infrastructure. Most of Stockholm, Sweden, has district heating, and has installed a substantial district cooling network based on seawater as well. There are very few individual aircon units to be found in Stockholm, because people are not afraid of investing in infrastructure which makes sense. And SWAC makes a lot of sense. Stockholm isn't even that hot in the summer, in Hawaii it should be a no-brainer.

With regards to OTEC and price. OTEC is one of the few large scale renewable energy system which can provide base load independent of what the weather is like. Hawaii is in the perfect location for it, it has the engineering skill locally, it is part of the largest economy in the world. The question is: does it have the guts to free itself from oil?

Labels: lockheed martin, nelha, otec, swac

posted by Thomas Bjelkeman at 12:23

US Navy Diego Garcia OTEC will do SWAC as well
According to this short piece in the Federal Times, the Diego Garcia OTEC will be used to not only produce electricity and fresh water, as we have talked about earlier, but the cold water will also be used for sea water air conditioning (SWAC) as well, which I hadn't seen reported anywhere before.

Labels: diego garcia, otec, swac, US Navy

posted by Thomas Bjelkeman at 15:07

The Guardian about the Seawater Greenhouse and the Sahara forest project
The UK newspaper The Guardian writes about the ambitious concept the Sahara forest project which is about using seawater and using solar power to grow food in the dessert. The concept uses Seawater Greenhouses as an integral component to make the dessert a sustainable food production facility. Any seawater airconditioning installation (SWAC) or OTEC installation can use "waste" cold seawater effectively in Seawater Greenhouses, so this is relevant for the OTEC community too.

Labels: otec, seawatergreenhouse, swac

posted by Thomas Bjelkeman at 10:39

Seawater air-conditioning in Cura�ao
Evelop is building a seawater air-conditioning system in Cura�ao. I visited Evelop Caribbean and talked to the Business Director of Evelop Caribbean, Gilbert Gouverneur about the project. The project is worth ?15-20 million and could decrease the energy use for air-conditioning by 90%.

Labels: oceanengineering, swac

posted by Thomas Bjelkeman at 09:50