TY - JOUR
T1 - Upscaling scenarios for ocean thermal energy conversion with technological learning in Indonesia and their global relevance
AU - Langer, J.K.A.
AU - Quist, Jaco
AU - Blok, Kornelis
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) is a promising renewable energy technology that is the most economical at large scale. But contemporary literature does not address how OTEC could reach such scale with current technology, and what the techno-economic impact of location-dependent factors and technological learning are. This paper tackles these issues by simulating OTEC's upscaling with a model that implements OTEC to meet local electricity demand and extrapolates to the global relevance of OTEC. The model uses a learning rate for investment costs and cost of finance. This study shows that up to 45 GW of OTEC capacity can be installed in Indonesia with national demand coverage of 22% in 2050. Even with small cost reduction rates, OTEC could be profitable and cost-competitive against other power generation technologies with an aggregated Net Present Value (NPV) of up to US$ 23 billion. OTEC's upscaling could be funded via state budget reallocation or international financial institutions, e.g. via the feed-in tariff suggested in the paper. However, large-scale OTEC is only feasible in regions with high electricity demand and until that size is reached, upscaling must be coordinated globally, e.g. with the proposed upscaling strategy. To contribute to the global energy transition, OTEC needs to grow by 28% per year, a rate similar to wind power and solar PV. This paper provides good reasons to fight for the attention of global decision makers and future research could focus on refining the concepts of this study.
AB - Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) is a promising renewable energy technology that is the most economical at large scale. But contemporary literature does not address how OTEC could reach such scale with current technology, and what the techno-economic impact of location-dependent factors and technological learning are. This paper tackles these issues by simulating OTEC's upscaling with a model that implements OTEC to meet local electricity demand and extrapolates to the global relevance of OTEC. The model uses a learning rate for investment costs and cost of finance. This study shows that up to 45 GW of OTEC capacity can be installed in Indonesia with national demand coverage of 22% in 2050. Even with small cost reduction rates, OTEC could be profitable and cost-competitive against other power generation technologies with an aggregated Net Present Value (NPV) of up to US$ 23 billion. OTEC's upscaling could be funded via state budget reallocation or international financial institutions, e.g. via the feed-in tariff suggested in the paper. However, large-scale OTEC is only feasible in regions with high electricity demand and until that size is reached, upscaling must be coordinated globally, e.g. with the proposed upscaling strategy. To contribute to the global energy transition, OTEC needs to grow by 28% per year, a rate similar to wind power and solar PV. This paper provides good reasons to fight for the attention of global decision makers and future research could focus on refining the concepts of this study.
KW - LCOE
KW - OTEC
KW - Scenarios
KW - Technological learning
KW - Upscaling
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85122756827&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.rser.2022.112086
DO - 10.1016/j.rser.2022.112086
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85122756827
SN - 1364-0321
VL - 158
JO - Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews
JF - Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews
M1 - 112086
ER -