Introducing OTEC to mainland utilities

The adoption of advanced technology by a large electric utility must be preceded by a lengthy assessment process involving cost, performance, reliability, technology availability, environmental impact, legal, institutional, and other factors. Over the past 25 years, the most important technological development to take place in the electric utility business has been that of nuclear power generation. This technology, though proven technically, has encountered significant problems. The time to site and construct a nuclear plant has grown because of environmental and regulatory restrictions. The absence of a national policy with respect to nuclear waste disposal and fuel recycling has created what appears to utility planners to be a very unfavorable political environment. For these and other reasons, the capital cost of nuclear plants has been steadily increasing and utility managements have begun to look to other fuel technologies such as coal.In this paper, we examine the major factors which a large utility considers in evaluating any potentially important new energy system. Briefly, we review U.S. electric utility experience with technological innovation and identify the major problem areas facing industry from one utility's point of view. We then discuss the feasibility and appeal of ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) technology and describe the steps which one utility executes in determining the need for new capacity and the planning process which results in the construction and operation of a new plant. These steps are then applied to OTEC.Tentatively, we have concluded that the current U.S. Government OTEC program leaves OTEC an unlikely candidate for meaningful U.S. mainland applications within the century. We recommend a specific development strategy which will produce performance and cost data needed by potential investors in, and by operators of, electric utilities.