Adoption of deep ocean water technologies and their contribution to sustainable development in the Caribbean

The world has today the urge of mitigating climate change and reducing fossil fuels dependence. This urge has led to an accelerated –yet insufficient– increase in the global renewable energy capacity, with a large deployment of solar and wind energy in recent years. The ocean has the potential to provide energy for the entire planet; still, marine technologies such as tidal, wave, thermal gradient, and salinity gradient energy have a minor share in the energy mix, given that most of these are in preliminary stages of development. Of particular interest, ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) and other deep ocean water (DOW) uses and technologies are arising as a suitable option for tropical islands. There are gaps that should be filled in order to make DOW technologies competitive with both conventional and other renewable alternatives, such as evaluation of practical potential, identification of main barriers, and design of policy incentives for supporting technology development. While solar and wind energy have the lead on cost, DOW technologies have the potential to compete with the added value that can provide, especially for insular areas and Small Island Developing States. This thesis contributes to such gaps by evaluating the potential of deep ocean water technologies (DOW) in the Caribbean, and the benefits that these can provide to achieve sustainable development goals. DOW is a renewable resource that, under the right extraction conditions, could contribute to sustainable development in the Caribbean. DOW could provide electricity through an OTEC plant, cooling services through a seawater air conditioning (SWAC) district, fresh water by integrating desalination and OTEC, and nutrients for seawater greenhouses, aquaculture, and nutrient-based business such as pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. As a first contribution, this thesis presents a detailed revision of DOW technologies status and proposes their integration in an ocean science and technology Ecopark, as an integral solution to some of the Caribbean’s challenges. Second, this thesis contributes to ocean energy gaps by proposing and applying a methodology for estimating the practical potential of DOW, as the maximum water flows that can be extracted from –and returned to– the ocean considering geographical, technical, and environmental constraints (in ocean currents, temperature, and salinity based in historic behavior). The application of the methodology five cities in the Caribbean allowed estimating a resource availability index that contributes to the understanding of reliability of ocean energy. Additionally, results suggest that DOW can supply 100% of today’s air conditioning demand and 60% of the electricity demand in each evaluated city. Finally, in this thesis, I developed a system dynamics simulation model to understanding the adoption process of SWAC in the Caribbean, identifying the main barriers, and testing different policy incentives for promoting its adoption. The main barriers identified were the lack of knowledge and low acceptance of the technology, the uncertainty about environmental impacts, and the lack of regulation regarding renewable energy and energy efficiency in the Caribbean. Simulation results show that the most effective policy incentive is to support the construction of pilot projects and adopt regional policies through cooperation between different islands.

• Autores: Arias Gaviria, Jessica
• Tipo de recurso: Doctoral thesis
• Fecha de publicación: 2018
• Institución: Universidad Nacional de Colombia
• Repositorio: Universidad Nacional de Colombia
• Idioma: spa
• OAI Identifier: oai:repositorio.unal.edu.co:unal/69786
• Acceso en línea: https://repositorio.unal.edu.co/handle/unal/69786; http://bdigital.unal.edu.co/72022/
• Palabra clave: 33 Economía / Economics; Deep ocean water (DOW); Ocean Ecoparks; Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC); Aguas profundas (DOW); Ecoparques Oceánicos; Energía por conversion térmica oceánica (OTEC); Política energética
• Rights: openAccess
• License: Atribución-NoComercial 4.0 Internacional