Mark Jason G.

Gotas

BSME 4A

Ocean Renewable Energy Technology

INTRODUCTION

Prior to the 20th century, renewable energies dominated globally. Wood, windmills,
watermills, slaves, and horses represented 100% of the total energy before the 19th century. During
the 19th century, coal and steam engines rose to the occasion. And until just recently, oil, gas, and
nuclear energies became dominant[1]. During the past few decades, renewable energy sources are
considered as an alternative energy source to the world’s excessive energy usage in effect of high
price fossil fuels, environmental pollution due to greenhouse effects and the utilization of fossil
fuels. Widespread concern over global climate change and other environmental impacts of
worldwide reliance on fossil fuels has increased interest in renewable energy. Issues on the rapid
population growth especially in the developing countries become alarming for it would mean a
higher demand for electricity. Keeping up with the trends, raising the standards of living and the
heavy reliance on technology in developed countries, energy demand would presumably rise, even
with advances in efficiency. As global commitment to renewables increases in the future, more
attention is likely to become focused on finding new ways to generate power [2].

Aside from the generic renewable energy source such as hydro, fuel cell and hydrogen,
biomass, geothermal, solar, photovoltaic, and wind powers, potential renewable power sources are
being investigated from different angles[2]. In an attempt to find a new angle in renewable energy,
researchers came across the idea of harvesting energy from the ocean which has later been
proposed as a source of renewable energy. Immeasurable and powerful, the ocean probably stores
enough energy in the form of heat, currents, waves, and tides to meet the total worldwide demand
[3].
for power many times over And with that, it will be critically important to ensure that the
development of new ocean energy technologies do not cause disruption in the marine environment,
which is already subject to multiple threats such as overfishing, pollution, habitat loss, and climate
change.

Ocean energy is a term that contains all renewable energy sources found in the oceans, that
uses kinetic, potential, chemical, or temperature of seawater. As far as ocean renewable energies
are concerned, efforts developing a wide range of safe, sustainable, and efficient technologies is
currently being experimented such as tidal energy, ocean currents, wave energy, Ocean Thermal
Energy Conversion (OTEC), Salinity gradient energy, and many more.

Tidal energy, from the term itself harvests energy from the tides. Tides are the regular and
predictable change in the height of the ocean, driven by gravitational and rotational forces between
the Earth, Moon and Sun, combined with centrifugal and inertial forces [4] .The rise and fall of the
tides creates potential energy. On the global scale, theoretically captured tidal energy resource
from areas close to the coastal zones, is estimated by 1 terawatt. There are three main types for
tidal energy: (i) tidal range (barrage), (ii) tidal steam/current, and (iii) hybrid forms [5]. The
inherent predictability of tidal energy is highly attractive for grid management, potentially
removing the need for back-up plants powered by fossil fuels. The use of tidal stream (rather than
tidal range) technologies provides an option for small, community projects and incremental
development.

Ocean currents are driven by latitudinal distributions of winds and thermohaline ocean
circulation. Compared to tidal currents, ocean currents are unidirectional and slower but
continuous. The currents operate most strongly close to the surface. This energy can be converted
into electricity by marine current turbines, gathered in underwater wind farms. About a third of it
are axial flow installations (with geometry that is very similar to the familiar wind farm design),
while the remainder are cross flow installations. Ocean current technologies are still in an early
developmental stage, there is no full-scale prototype has been demonstrated yet. Despite the fact
of availability and distribute globally ocean currents, it is still unclear how many may prove
feasibility of this projects and draw interest for project development. If technologies can be
developed to capture the lower velocity currents, the projects scale could potentially be much
larger given the large volumes of water and scale of oceanic currents in comparison to tidal streams.

Wave energy is generated by the movement of a device either floating on the surface of the
ocean or moored to the ocean floor. As the wind continues to blow, the ripples become chop, then
fully developed seas, and finally swells. In deep water, the energy in waves can travel for thousands
of miles before it is finally dissipated on distant shores. Since wave energy essentially is formed
by wind energy being collected over large areas, while levels may fluctuate, its presence is
relatively constant [5] . Many devices have been proposed to achieve the conversion of wave
energy into electricity. Various hydraulic or pneumatic power conversion systems are used, and in
some cases, the mechanical motion induced by the wave energy is converted directly to electrical
power (direct-drive).

Wave energy technologies consist of a number of components: 1) the structure and prime
mover that captures the energy of the wave, 2) foundation or mooring keeping the structure and
prime mover in place, 3) the power take-off (PTO) system by which mechanical energy is
converted into electrical energy, and 4) the control systems to safeguard and optimize performance
in operating conditions. Wave conversion devices that float on the surface have joints hinged
together that bend with the waves. This kinetic energy pumps fluid through turbines and creates
electric power. Stationary wave energy conversion devices use pressure fluctuations produced in
long tubes from the waves swelling up and down. This bobbing motion drives a turbine when
critical pressure is reached. Other stationary platforms capture water from waves on their platforms.
This water is allowed to runoff through narrow pipes that flow through a typical hydraulic turbine.
Wave energy is proving to be the most commercially advanced of the ocean energy technologies
with a number of companies competing for the lead [6].

Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) has the highest potential in comparison with all
ocean energy technologies. There are around 98 nations and territories have identified that they
have viable OTEC resources in their exclusive economic zones. OTEC technologies operates
based on the temperature difference between the surface of the ocean (warm seawater), and a deep-
sea water (cold seawater). The warm seawater is used to produce a vapour which is the working
fluid would drive turbines. The cold water is used to condense the vapour and ensure the vapour
pressure difference drives the turbine. OTEC technologies are distinguished by the working fluids
that can be used. The working fluid in the open cycle uses seawater. But closed cycle, the working
fluid is mostly ammonia. [7] .

Salinity gradient energy occurs from the difference in salt concentration between two
different fluids, commonly happen between salt and fresh water, e.g. when a river flows into the
sea. The energy can be harnessed by two main concepts: (i) Pressure Retarded Osmosis (PRO)
which uses a membrane to separate the concentrated salt solution like sea water from freshwater,
and (ii) Reversed Electro Dialysis (RED), which captures the chemical potential between the
freshwater and seawater where the flow through a semipermeable membrane. It is still the
conceptual and early research sage technology [6].

There are increasing activities towards development and utilization of ocean energy
technologies in different parts of the world. Countries like UK, Canada and Australia are looking
forward to scale up the activities on ocean energy by looking into deployment of higher energy
producing turbines into the water. There are announcements for tidal range projects deployments
in India (IORA’s member country), Korea, the Philippines and Russia is leading by planning to
install around 95 gigawatts (GW) [7]. China, Japan, and Taiwan are testing and putting more
devices into the water and testing its viability as an alternative source of energy in their own
respective islands. Sharing the experiences and challenges across the countries in terms of resource
assessment, prototyping, deployment and commercialization were seen to be helpful especially
since ocean renewable energy is in its nascent stage in Southeast Asian region, specifically in its
islands and remote coastal areas such as the Philippines. However, there is a need for readily
available ocean energy technologies to be retro-fitted in the conditions that are unique in the
tropical, remote and islandic conditions of most of the countries in Southeast Asia [8].

The level of knowledge and expertise might vary from one country to another but the
interest to find alternative source of energy is strong [8]. Overall, there is a higher push from
different stakeholders to investigate ocean renewable energy as an alternative source of energy
especially in islands. This positive outlook should be accompanied with concrete steps and actions
items to work together to put more working ocean energy devices under water.
References

[1] P. I. Project, Sustainable Management of Marine Resources, Hawaii, USA, 2012.

[2] R. M. Robin Pelc, Renewable energy from the ocean, 2002.

[3] E. E. a. D. Nazarpour, Ocean's Renewable Power and Review of Technologies: Case Study Waves.

[4] e. Lewis, Ocean Energy, 2011.

[5] M. r. canada, Marine Renewable Energy in Canada, 2018.

[6] U. D. o. Energy, Ocean Energy Technology Overview, 2009.

[7] I. R. E. Agency, Ocean Energy.

[8] N. T. U. (NTU), Ocean Energy in Insular Conditions, Singapore City: NANYANG TECHNOLOGICAL
UNIVERSITY (NTU), 2017.