Page 389 - Handbook of Energy Engineering Calculations

Note: The gross plant power, 100 kW, and the gross plant efficiency, 2.5
percent, do not take into account pumping and other auxiliary power inputs to

the plant.
It can be seen that very large ocean-water mass and volume flow rates are
used in open OTEC systems and that the turbine is a very low-pressure unit

that receives steam with specific volumes more than 2000 times that in a
modern fossil power plant. Thus the turbine resembles the few last exhaust
stages of a conventional turbine and is thus physically large.

Related Calculations. Although the first attempt at producing power from
ocean temperature differences was the open cycle of Georges Claude in 1929,

d’Arsonval’s original concept in 1881 was that of a closed cycle that also
utilizes the ocean’s warm surface and cool deep waters as heat source and
sink, respectively, but requires a separate working fluid that receives and
rejects heat to the source and sink via heat exchangers (boiler and surface

condenser) (Fig. 2).