The Future of Marine Technologies: Technology Developments, Key Costs and the Future Outlook

NEW YORK, Nov. 4, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Reportlinker.com announces that a new market research report is available in its catalogue:

The Future of Marine Technologies: Technology developments, key costs and the future outlook

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Many of the world's potential renewable energy resources are being exploited today to generate electricity. The main exception is marine energy, the energy contained in various forms in the world's seas and oceans. This situation looks set to change as the challenge of combating global warming inspires a renewed search for methods to extract marine energy from our seas. Wave power and systems that can exploit the movement of water generated by the tides are attracting the most attention but methods for using the warm seas in the tropics to produce electricity and even the attempts to extract energy released when salt and fresh water mix are now coming under the gaze of scientists and technicians too. Some of the resulting technologies remain far from commercial implementation but several are now close to commercialization.

With all but tidal barrage power plants still in an early stage of development and no commercial plants of any other type in operation, assessing the economics of marine power generation technologies today depends on projections based on early prototypes of early demonstration units. Today these are generally more costly than alternative forms of power generation, both conventional and renewable. However the example of the wind power market shows that costs can fall dramatically as both technology improves and economies of scale are realized. Some early predictions suggest that some marine technologies might be cheaper than wind power but the level of uncertainty in such predictions is high.

Key features of this report

• Analysis of marine technologies concepts and components.

• Assessment of marine technologies power plant market.

• Insight relating to the most innovative technologies and potential areas of opportunity for manufacturers.

• Examination of the key technology introductions and innovations.

Scope of this report

• Realize up to date competitive intelligence through a comprehensive review of marine technologies concepts in electricity power generation markets.

• Assess the emerging trends in marine technologies – including ocean thermal energy conversion, wave power generation and tidal stream technologies, tidal barrage power plants, salinity gradient power generation.

• Identify which key trends will offer the greatest growth potential and learn which technology trends are likely to allow greater market impact.

• Compare how manufacturers are developing new marine technologies

Key Market Issues

• Environmental requirements:- The volume of fossil fuels burnt for power and heat generation have continually grown in line with economic, infrastructure and population growth. The resulting growth of carbon dioxide emissions globally has been linked to global warming and thereon climate change. Political, environmentalist and consumer pressures to lower carbon emissions is creating a path for lower carbon emitting power generation technologies.

• Ocean energy resources:- The energy that can be derived from the world's oceans and converted into electrical power comes from a number of different sources. These include daily tidal motions, the energy contained in waves, a variety of ocean and sea currents and by exploitation of both thermal and salinity gradients where these exist. Estimates for the amount of power that can be extracted from the oceans depend on assumptions about the energy content of the particular source being exploited as well as the efficiency of extraction of energy that can be achieved by an energy converter.

• Economics of clean thermal technologies:- With all but tidal barrage power plants still in an early stage of development and no commercial plants of any other type in operation, assessing the economics of marine power generation technologies today depends on projections based on early prototypes of early demonstration units.

Key findings from this report

• New types of marine power generation technologies are evolving that are designed to use freely available resources and collect energy outputting low level pollutant emissions.

• Wave power is again potentially the largest resource, with the potential to provide between 1,000GW and 10,000GW of generating capacity.

• The strongest winds and the largest waves are generally found between 30º and 60º of latitude.

• Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion technologies have among the lowest of all life cycle carbon emissions.

• Certain forms of marine technology generation are already cost competitive with alternative forms of energy generation.

Key questions answered

• What are the drivers shaping and influencing marine technology development in the electricity industry?

• What are the life cycle carbon emissions of the various marine technologies?

• What is marine technology power generation going to cost?

• Which marine technology types will be the winners and which the losers in terms power generated, cost and viability?

Companies mentioned

Table of Contents

The Future of Marine Technologies

Executive summary 10

Introduction 10

Ocean energy resources 10

Ocean thermal energy conversion 11

Wave power generation 11

Tidal stream technologies 12

Tidal barrage power plants 12

Salinity gradient power generation 13

The economics of marine power generation 13

The prospects for marine power generation technologies 13

Chapter 1 Introduction 16

Summary 16

Marine energy resources 17

Energy capture technologies 18

The structure of the report 20

Chapter 2 Ocean energy resources 22

Introduction 22

Global resource levels 23

Wave energy 27

Tidal power 30

Thermal gradient 32

Salinity gradient 33

Mapping marine resources 33

Chapter 3 Ocean thermal energy conversion 36

Introduction 36

Background 37

Heat engine efficiency 39

OTEC configurations 41

Open cycle OTEC 43

OTEC projects 44

Major challenges and developments 46

Environmental considerations 47

Economics 49

Chapter 4 Wave power generation 54

Introduction 54

History of wave energy capture 56

Types of wave energy capture device 57

Shore line and near shore devices 58

Oscillating water columns 58

Tapered channels and overtopping devices 59

Oscillating flaps 60

Offshore wave energy converters 61

Floats, wave pumps and swings 61

Snakes, ducks and pontoons 62

Piezo-electric converters 63

Intermittency and wave energy 63

Wave energy pilot projects 64

Environmental impact 67

Economics 68

Chapter 5 Tidal stream technologies 74

Introduction 74

Tidal stream energy 75

Tidal stream technology 78

Horizontal axis tidal stream turbines 80

Vertical axis tidal stream turbines 83

Cross flow turbines 84

Hydrofoils 84

Other tidal current systems 85

Tidal stream pilot projects 86

Environmental considerations 88

The economics of tidal stream power generation 89

Chapter 6 Tidal barrage power plants 94

Introduction 94

Tidal barrage principles 98

Bunded reservoirs and tidal lagoons 100

Tidal turbines 101

Tidal barrages 102

Seawater pumped storage 103

Tidal barrage projects 104

Environmental considerations 105

The economics of tidal barrages 107

Chapter 7 Salinity gradient power generation 110

Introduction 110

Extracting power from a salinity gradient 111

Osmotic power 111

Vapor compression 112

Hydrocratic generation 113

Reversed electrodialysis 113

Environmental considerations 114

Costs 115

Chapter 8 The economics of marine power generation 118

Introduction 118

Comparisons with wind energy 119

Installed cost of marine technologies 121

Cost of electricity from marine power generation technologies 122

Chapter 9 The prospects for marine power generation technologies 128

Introduction 128

Comparative costs of power generation 129

Wave and tidal stream power 136

Tidal barrage power plants 139

Ocean thermal energy technology 140

Salinity gradient power generation 143

Conclusions 143

Index 145

List of Figures

Figure 2.1: Ocean energy resources, (TWh/y) 24

Figure 2.2: Ocean energy potential generating capacity, (GW) 26

Figure 2.3: US wave energy potential, (TWh/y) 29

Figure 2.4: US tidal current potential, (TWh/y) 31

Figure 3.5: Theoretical OTEC efficiencies 40

Figure 3.6: Life cycle carbon dioxide emissions from OTEC plants 48

Figure 3.7: Costs for a 100MW floating OTEC plant 51

Figure 4.8: Annual wave energy content for different regions, (kW/m) 55

Figure 4.9: Estimated installation costs for wave energy converters 69

Figure 4.10: Estimated cost of electricity from wave energy plants 70

Figure 5.11: Tidal current turbine size required to sweep out a power density of 1MW at different current speeds 76

Figure 5.12: Water current power swept out by a 10m diameter turbine at different current speeds 78

Figure 5.13: Estimated installed cost ($/kW) of tidal stream generation in North America 92

Figure 6.14: Tidal reach at best global sites, (m) 95

Figure 6.15: Global tidal sites with largest energy potential 97

Figure 8.16: Cost estimates for generation in the UK (pounds/kW) 124

Figure 9.17: Comparative installed cost of generating technologies (pounds/kW), UK 131

Figure 9.18: Cost of electricity from competing technologies (pounds/MWh), UK 132

Figure 9.19: Levelized cost of electricity from competing technologies ($/MWh), California 134

Figure 9.20: Island states with potential OTEC 142

List of Tables

Table 2.1: Ocean energy resources, (TWh/y) 23

Table 2.2: Ocean energy potential generating capacity, (GW) 25

Table 2.3: US wave energy potential, (TWh/y) 28

Table 2.4: US tidal current potential, (TWh/y) 31

Table 3.5: Theoretical OTEC efficiencies 40

Table 3.6: OTEC plant configurations 42

Table 3.7: Life cycle carbon dioxide emissions from OTEC plants 48

Table 3.8: Costs for a 100MW floating OTEC plant 50

Table 4.9: Annual wave energy content for different regions, (kW/m) 55

Table 4.10: Types of wave energy converter 57

Table 4.11: Estimated installation costs for wave energy converters 68

Table 4.12: Estimated cost of electricity from wave energy plants 70

Table 5.13: Tidal current turbine size required to sweep out a power density of 1MW at different current speeds 76

Table 5.14: Water current power swept out by a 10m diameter turbine at different current speeds 77

Table 5.15: Types of tidal stream power generation devices 81

Table 5.16: Cost estimates for tidal stream power generation 90

Table 5.17: Economics of tidal stream generation in North America 91

Table 6.18: Tidal reach at best global sites, (m) 95

Table 6.19: Global tidal sites with largest energy potential 96

Table 6.20: Major tidal barrage power plants 104

Table 7.21: Types of salinity gradient power generation 113

Table 8.22: Marine power generation costs 121

Table 8.23: Cost estimates for generation in the UK 123

Table 9.24: Comparative installed cost of generating technologies (pounds/kW), UK 130

Table 9.25: Cost of electricity from competing technologies (pounds/MWh), UK 132

Table 9.26: Levelized cost of electricity from competing technologies ($/MWh), California 134

Table 9.27: European growth prospects for wave and tidal stream technologies 137

Table 9.28: Island states with potential OTEC 141

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