wiUSA December 2013

Makai Ocean Engineering has received a $3.6 million contract from the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute and the Office of Naval Research for research and design work on the marine renewable energy known as ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC). The Waimanalo-based ocean technology firm will perform this work at its Ocean Energy Research Center in Kailua-Kona on Hawaii’s Big Island, which is the largest OTEC research facility in the world. “Ifwecanuseonepercent of theenergy [generated by OTEC] for electricity and other things, the potential is so big,” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration senior scientist Joseph Huang said, in a statement. “It is more than 100 to 1,000 times more than the current consumption of worldwide energy. The potential is huge. There OTEC contract

is not any other renewable energy that can compare with OTEC, which is unique among renewables because it can provide large quantities of constant electricity.” Makai Ocean Engineering will work on two initiatives towards making commercial OTEC a reality, including designing, manufacturing and testing an improved heat exchanger for OTEC and connecting power from its OTEC plant to the electric grid on the Big Island. Heat exchangers make up about a third of the cost of an OTEC plant, so Makai plans to develop a high performance, low cost and corrosion-resistant OTEC heat exchanger. Makai will also install a 100kW turbine at the Ocean Energy Research Center to generate OTEC power onto the local grid by mid-2014.

wiredInUSA - December 2013 i I

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