UK-based Global OTEC has completed the installation of the world’s first purpose-built offshore platform designed to generate continuous renewable energy from the temperature difference between warm surface and cold deep ocean water.
The floating prototype has been deployed at the Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands (PLOCAN), a marine technology test site off the coast of Spain.
The installation forms part of a €3.5m (£3m) project funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe initiative, awarded to a pan-European consortium led by Global OTEC in 2022.
The key engineering milestone involved the successful deployment of a vertical seawater intake riser, widely considered the most complex step in establishing an offshore OTEC system.
Offshore operation reduces the pipe length needed compared to onshore setups by 80%, enabling the scale required for meaningful power generation.
Dan Grech, Founder and Chief Executive of Global OTEC, said: “This is the moment where OTEC moves away from controlled environments into the real world. We now have a new class of standardised and replicable baseload power on a learning curve akin to wind, solar and batteries.”
Global OTEC has identified over 25 GW of fossil fuel capacity across tropical islands that could eventually be replaced by OTEC systems.
The company’s next step is to bring the first OTEC Power Module to Hawaii.
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