Criteria for Optimal Site Selection for Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) Plants in Mexico

Abstract

Sustainable energy is needed globally, and Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) is a possible way to diversify the energy matrix. This article suggests a preliminary selection process to find optimal sites for OTEC deployment on the Mexican coastline. The method comprises the (1) evaluation of the thermal power potential, using daily data (16 years) of sea surface temperature, and the percentage of available time of the power thresholds; (2) assessment of feasibility using a decision matrix, fed by technical, environmental and socioeconomic criteria; (3) identification of four potential sites; and (4) comparison of OTEC competitiveness with other technologies through the levelized cost of energy. Multi-criteria decision analysis was applied to select optimal sites, using the technique for ordering performance by the similarity to the ideal solution. The best sites were (1) Puerto Angel and (2) Cabo San Lucas; with power production of > 50 MW and a persistence of > 40%. As yet there is no evidence from operational OTEC plants that could alter the environmental and socioeconomic criteria weightings. More in situ studies on pilot plants should help to determine their possible environmental impact and socio-economic consequences before any larger-scale projects are implemented.

Deployment of sustainable off-grid marine renewable energy systems in Mexico

“…Mexico has a coastline of around 12,000 km, where a variety of MREs offer significant energy potential for 91-100% of the time, such as Thermal Gradient Energy (TGE), Salinity Gradient Energy (SGE), Ocean Currents Energy (OCE) with 0.5-1 kW/m 2 , Tidal Energy (TE), Wave Power (WP) with 10-20 kW/m, and Offshore Wind Energy (OWE) (Hernández-Fontes et al, 2019;Posada-Vanegas et al, 2019). These energy resources compare relatively well with other renewable energies (Garduño-Ruiz et al, 2021).…”

“…Capacity Factor (%) (Garduño-Ruiz et al, 2021;Gorr-Pozzi et al, 2021;IEA-OES, 2022;Tobal-Cupul et al, 2022) Off grid system viability (Power rating) (Sheng et al, 2017;IRENA, 2019IRENA, , 2020Gorr-Pozzi et al, 2021) Efficiency (W/m 2 ) (Alcérreca-Huerta et al, 2019;Hernández-Fontes et al, 2019) Environmental Climate change potential (gCO2 equiv/kWh) (Rau and Baird, 2018;Paredes et al, 2019;Ma et al, 2022;Smoot, 2022;Tobal-Cupul et al, 2022) Affection to threatened ecosystem (% of affection) Exclusion zone (m 2 ) (Kim et al, 2012;Gourvenec et al, 2022;Hernández Galvez et al, 2022) Frontiers in Energy Research frontiersin.org contributed to manuscript revision, read, and approved the submitted version.…”

“…FIGURE 1 (A) Mean monthly variability for different MREs in Cozumel and Baja California. Data taken from CEMIE-Oceano research(Garduño-Ruiz et al, 2021;Gorr-Pozzi et al, 2021;Olmedo-González et al, 2021;Tobal-Cupul et al, 2022). Note: The power units are "normalized" because the graph only represents the power variation considering a minimum power generation of 0.5 units.…”

Special Issue “Selected Papers from the 8th International OTEC Symposium”

“…If we can convert ocean thermal energy into electric energy, this would significantly contribute to renewable energy production in the 21st century. However, there are several difficulties to overcome to make OTEC more available, such as (but not limited to) holistic integration with other renewable energy technologies [1]; preliminary data acquisition/analysis of sea surface temperature [2]; sensitive influence of ocean surface temperature on plant operation [3]; determination of plant-size for cost-effective production [4]; lack of standardization due to large plant size [5]; and transition from closed cycle to open cycle operations in the near future.…”

“…Two core aspects of OTEC plants are location selection and the performance evaluation. An analysis of longterm data of sea surface temperature at a specific model location is of great importance, as investigated by Garduno-Ruiz et al [2] for the Mexican Pacific and Caribbean Sea. In the same light, Huante et al [3] emphasized the holistic use of available databases of sea surface temperature, i.e., the World Ocean Atlas (WOA), Satellite Oceanic Monitoring System (SATMO), and in situ sensor measurements.…”