Lockheed funded to pursue ocean thermal technology

March 18, 2010

Lockheed has been developing the OTEC technology for the US Navy

Lockheed Martin has been awarded two grants totalling $1 million to help develop technology to derive heat energy from the ocean.

The US Department of Energy is backing the defense technology company’s efforts to develop a utility-scale renewable energy source.

The Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) technology would exploit the difference in temperature between the ocean’s warm surface water and the colder water in lower layers.

It could also allow development of a seawater-based air conditioning (SWAC) system.

Lockheed Martin has been working on the technology since the 1970s, but the work has stepped up in recent years after the firm received multi-million dollar grants from the US Department of Energy and the military in 2008 and 2009.

Essentially, the technology works by the warmer surface water of the ocean being put through a heat transfer system to boil a fluid that has a low boiling point, which can then be used to drive a turbine.

Lockheed Martin has been working with a number of partners on the OTEC project, including Hawaii-based Makai Ocean Engineering, Inc., along with the University of Hawaii, Florida Atlantic University and West Virginia University.

Grants

Of the latest grants awarded to the company, the first will fund the development of a tool to estimate the amount energy that the technology could extract from the ocean, and which areas of the world’s seas might be most suitable.

The second DOE grant will pay for work to assess the performance and life-cycle costs for a utility-scale OTEC system.

“The Department of Energy awards provide Lockheed Martin the opportunity to further demonstrate the capability of OTEC,” said Jeffrey Napoliello, vice president of Lockheed Martin’s New Ventures line of business.

“As a self-sustaining energy source, with no supplemental power required, OTEC will help our nation and our military achieve their renewable energy goals.”

Lockheed Martin, which has its head office in Bethseda, Maryland, first developed a “mini-OTEC” system to generate power from the ocean back in the 1970s. The 50-kilowatt pilot ran for about three months at the time.

Similar technology is now being used in areas like Sweden, Bora Bora, Canada and Hawaii to run air conditioning systems and reduce electricity demand in high summer.

Lockheed is looking to take further steps towards commercializing the technology for use at a utility scale.

Back in 2008, it received a $1.2 million DOE grant to demonstrate cold water piping systems that might be used to carry large volumes of seawater that would be required for a commercial power plant.

Last September, the company was awarded an $8.12 million contract from the US Naval Facilities Engineering Command to develop system components and designs for an OTEC pilot plant.