RENEWABLE ENERGY
INGENIEUR
RENEWABLE ENERGY
INGENIEUR
Investment in Ocean Thermal Energy-Driven Development to Meet 2035 Carbon Emission Target
By Dato ’ Ir . Dr A . Bakar Jaafar Professor , Perdana Centre , UTM Razak Faculty of Technology and Informatics , and Research Fellow & Founding Director , UTM Ocean Thermal Energy Centre
The Renewable Energy Roadmap of Malaysia1 has yet to consider the potential capacity of ocean thermal energy in the deep waters off the States of Sabah and Sarawak amounting to at least 26 GW 2 . The Roadmap covers only the existing sources of renewable energy , namely , biogas , biomass , hydro , and solar .
The purpose of this article is to focus on the potential contribution of ocean thermal energydriven projects that alone could fulfil the national carbon emission target by 2035 at 89.21 million tonnes of carbon from 109.11 million tonnes in 2025 , as tabulated in Table 1 . That would call for a total reduction of 19.90 million tonnes of carbon over that 10-year period . It is also the purpose of this article to estimate the capital investment required in developing the required capacity of ocean thermal energy and the level of employment created .
As shown in Figure 1 , the emission factor of the most efficient coal-fired power plant is
865gCO 2
/ kWh . 3 Thus , one MW of such a power plant operating over a year would emit 7,577 tonnes of CO 2 annually . This emission could be offset by the development of one MW ocean thermal energy conversion ( OTEC ) power plant by as much as 7,500 tonnes , as shown in Table 2 . 4
1 Sustainable Energy Development Authority of Malaysia [ SEDA ]( 2021 ). Malaysia Renewable Energy Roadmap : Pathway towards Low Carbon Energy Systems ( MyRER ) [ https :// www . seda . gov . my / reportal / myrer /]
2 Per . Com . With the Late Sr Tan Ah Bah of National Survey & Mapping Department ( JUPEM ) ón Dec 2 , 2013 . The total area deeper than 700 m isobath in Malaysia is 131,120 km 2 with ocean thermal energy potential of at least 26 GW @ O . 2 MW / km 2 [ Brin Andre ( 1981 ). Energy and the Oceans . Woburn MA : Butterworth , Inc . 133 pp . cited by Avery William H . and Wu Chih ( 1994 ). Renewable Energy from the Ocean- A Guide to OTEC . New York : Oxford University Press . Page 46 .]
3 https :// www . iea . org / data-and-statistics / charts / average-co2-intensity-of-power-generation-from-coalpower-plants-2000-2020 . Accessed on June 5 , 2023
4 Yoonyoung CHUN et al ( 2023 )_ LCA Evaluation for Hybrid-OTEC & Malaysia Model _ 8th Meeting of SATREPS-OTEC Programme _ June 8 , 2023
66 VOL 96 OCTOBER-DECEMBER 2023