Speculative Beginnings
The Company was founded based on the assumption that a lower cost method of raising deep-sea-cold-water would be of interest to investors and energy users. REsystems Ltd. are proprietors of intellectual property that describes novel methods of delivering deep-sea-cold-water for use in industry. We were granted several patents over the course of the last decade, and these are still in force.
Research
As time went by, we went through many cycles of evolution where passion and ignorance were replaced with knowledge and skills. We developed the ability to talk in physical values with other engineering companies and this led us to be able to get accurate quotes. These abilities were developed with a professor and a master’s engineer in thermodynamics, both of whom are now shareholders.
Exciting revelations
Much to our surprise, we found that OTEC heat exchangers are affordable, and so too are all aspects of OTEC power generation; these are all established products in highly established fields of expertise where all the answers to the problems already exist in complete products. All the technology can come off the shelf and is either Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 8 or 9. The highest level being nine. We were thrilled by just how easily an OTEC plant could be built and by how well OTEC compares with other energy sources.
Budget Field Tests
We conducted a mock hose installation on a commercial scale. We found that it really was easy to install and retrieve hoses and that the process of installation was affordable. Hoses can be laid at a rate of meters per second!
Turbo-pump prototypes
We found suitable turbines and pumps that were affordable and that the process of retrofitting them was straightforward.
We concluded that the turbo-pump and hose method is an attractive solution to deep-sea-cold-water delivery that offers a significant reduction in costs.
Further innovations
Further innovations relating to additional heat have meant that the potential market is now genuinely large and can certainly produce cost effective energy on continental scales and that seasonal and continental sites as well and islands in the tropics can benefit economically and environmentally from warm and cold seawater. Deep sea cold water has many possible future uses including cost effective and potent Co2 offsetting, and ocean fertilisation for sea farming, and marine biodiesel.
Ready for market
Recent research suggests that there is now a plethora of genuinely affordable ‘off-the-shelf’ small-scale turbogenerators on the market, and these are perfectly suited to OTEC through use of the organic Rankine cycle, the process to which these turbogenerators belong.
REsystems Ltd. is now a burgeoning start-up. We have found well-known suppliers for every part, and we have made links to all of the associated trades. A capable team is emerging and so now we are slowly gearing up towards our first substantial investment.
We are now ready to sell NEW-OTEC products to private end users or developers, or to do business as an independent power producer. Subsidiaries are planned for each avenue, and these are open to investors, as is the IP holding company. We are looking for sites that can use the technology.
Our message
Don’t be afraid of OTEC as though it were a new technology.
OTEC is just renewable organic Rankine cycle (ORC), and ORC. technology is used in geothermal, waste heat, and biomass plants.
We can help you build confidence in our products by sharing our software with you. You can corroborate the values we generate elsewhere in ’24 hours’. That way you can be confident of what you are buying. This is the advantage to OTEC being tied to the organic Rankine cycle. It can be easy to build trust in the technology and therefore us.
Logical development process
If you are afraid of new technology, then the availability of smaller scale more affordable uses for deep-water may be a great way to build confidence in the technology.
Sea-water-air-conditioning (SWAC) can be used as a steppingstone to OTEC, and it is incredibly powerful at cooling air. SWAC is persistently overlooked as a source of energy economy because of the attraction to the glory of renewable 24-7 electricity.
SWAC has none of the traditional problems of OTEC and is potentially worth far more for far less than OTEC to the user at the site.
Use of additional heat in an OTEC system can mean that hose diameters do not need to increase past those used in SWAC. As such, OTEC can very conveniently be added later to a pre-existing SWAC system.
Co2 sequestration using deep-ocean-water is a commercially viable activity that can be used as a steppingstone to SWAC and OTEC. Sites with a Co2 installation can use the same water for OTEC and SWAC.
Deep-ocean-water is a unique selling point for any suitable site.
Deep-ocean-water is special.
Any site where deep-ocean-water can be used is linked to a very valuable asset. Successful delivery of deep-ocean-water may lead to an increase in land value.
An end user can be an investor too and can stand to gain even more from successful development of the technology including lower development costs and, or greater capital gains and profits.
Frequently asked questions about us, heat engines, and traditional OTEC.
OTEC is organic Rankine cycle with sea water as a renewable heat source, why isn’t it developed already?
Of course, for some people OTEC is obviously viable this is just organic Rankine cycle (ORC) with very low-grade heat. However, this is where the controversy begins; does very low-grade heat work in ORC or not and if so, how well? OTEC is doubted for this reason, and equipment costs are high enough to have stalled private development of traditional OTEC.
Can’t you add more heat?
There is one simple fix can be applied and that is to use additional heat, and this can be done by simply adding an additional heat exchanger. With the use of the additional heat exchanger the grade of heat can match that of an untold number of sites where ORC. is working and the exact same ‘bankable’ machine can be purchased. Problem solved!
Doesn’t this make the use of sea water pointless?
This does NOT make the use of seawater pointless, far from it. The organic Rankine cycle requires for working fluid phase changes. It is these phase changes from gas to liquid and liquid to gas that take allot of energy and this happens at around 12 degrees. This energy cannot be recovered in the form of electricity, it is entirely ‘wasted’ / rejected. This is a fundamental of all organic Rankine cycle systems and their design.
The quantity of energy required to change the state from gas to liquid and liquid to gas is quite large. Much greater than the net power that can be produced by natural seawater temperatures, there is a ratio of about sixty waste heat to one net power produced at sites near the edge of the tropics like the Bahamas. This is the controversy of OTEC and why there are expense problems.
Unlike traditional OTEC some power plants continue to heat the working fluid by hundreds of degrees, and this is how old-fashioned technology was so cost effective, because for the very most part all this heat can be converted to electrical power. Amazingly, there is nothing to stop an OTEC system from doing the same if extra heat is added.
How much heat must be added for what benefit?
In a traditional OTEC ORC system, the working fluid phase change happens at around 12 degrees centigrade. Once boiled, and vaporised the working fluid is now a gas and can begin to gain in temperature and pressure. This gain in temperature and pressure is what can be converted into electricity. Under 20 degrees and the system is not economically viable, this is equivalent to subtropical. Once over about 23 degrees the system becomes worthwhile economically, this is equivalent to just inside the tropics.
However, if you can get up to around 30 degrees, equivalent to the Equator, the user will already have doubled the net power to capital cost ratio when compared with sites just on the inside of the tropics.
What sites are eligible then?
This depends on whether you mean natural OTEC or not, heat engines and natural sources of hot and cold can be made to work in many different ways. Natural hot and cold is a selling point of OTEC.
OTEC is traditionally associated with polar meltwater, so definitions may obscure feasibility, so too the assumption that OTEC is using a rigid pipe and the cost problems associated with that method.
Can you add as much heat as you like?
There might be no need for a NEW-OTEC system to go over 30 degrees for the user to be happy with the economics of the plant, however, the system can go on to add as much heat as is practical using traditional heat transfer methods just as traditional power plants do.
Does this mean that a NEW-OTEC plant can be the best way to produce power from any heat source?
It certainly looks like it.
As surface water temperatures go up in the summer less additional heat may need to be added to generate the same amount of net power as in the winter. That means greater fuel economy through warmer months. Even geothermal sites can benefit by reducing the amount of work that the geothermal heat source must do.
Use of NEW-OTEC even with dirty fuels is a better way of creating electrical power; eligible sites can use the same equipment as traditional ORC., but with a vastly improved fuel economy.
