Some Design Criteria for OTEC Installations for Keahole Point, Hawaii

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, called OTEC, is presently getting much serious support for continued studies. Presently, there are potential OTEC sites off Punta Tuna, Puerto Rico; West Coast of Florida; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Keahole Point, Hawaii, the latter of which is the theme of this paper. The paper gives a summary of the early history of OTEC and its present status at Keahole Point, Hawaii, including design criteria. Any OTEC plant must operate throughout the normal environment, i.e. operational design sea state, including winds, waves and currents. The plant must be designed for the extreme environmental conditions, such as associated with hurricanes. The selection of an OTEC site depends on the availability of the resource, particularly associated with the temperature difference between the surface waters and the deep water. The change in the environmental parameters, and the consequences of any anticipated changes, are subjects of an environmental impact statement, the subject of which has been studied but is not reported here as part of this paper.