The Makai Ocean Engineering plant in Hawaii is perhaps the most famous operational OTEC facility. It is a 105-kilowatt (kW) land-based plant.
Japan is a world leader in OTEC research, driven by their need for energy independence. A 100-kW plant launched in 2013. otec examples
India’s National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) has built a 1 MW floating OTEC plant off the coast of Kavaratti Island in Lakshadweep. Interestingly, this is a "shallow" design (cold water from ~350 meters instead of 1,000 meters), which reduces pumping costs but also lowers efficiency. The Makai Ocean Engineering plant in Hawaii is
: Global OTEC is developing a modular floating OTEC barge designed to replace diesel generators on tropical islands. It aims to provide roughly 1.5 MW of clean power. A 100-kW plant launched in 2013
While not a giant power plant, the OTEC facility on the tiny island of Kumejima is arguably one of the most practical and holistic examples of the technology. The island relies on expensive, imported diesel for electricity.
The first true OTEC experiment was built by French engineer Georges Claude, a student of Jacques-Arsène d’Arsonval (the original OTEC visionary). In 1930, Claude constructed a small open-cycle OTEC plant in Matanzas Bay, Cuba.
From Georges Claude’s storm-ravaged Cuban prototype to the steady, grid-connected hum of Makai’s plant in Hawaii, OTEC has traveled from scientific curiosity to technical viability. The examples listed above—Mini-OTEC, Saga University’s hybrid plant, Nauru’s net-positive breakthrough, and the ambitious 1 MW plans in Japan and the Maldives—paint a clear picture: OTEC works. The challenge is no longer physics or engineering feasibility, but economics and scaling.