Assessment of Economic Potential of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion in Indonesia

Abstract

What are the national and provincial economic potentials of ocean thermal energy conversion in relation to the provincial electricity demand fulfilment in Indonesia? When we are talking about the economic potential of OTEC in Indonesia, we are talking about potential as a result of different possible configurations. On the national level, the economic potentials of both cost assumptions are more than enough to fulfil the total electricity demand of the country. However, Indonesia seizes an immensely broad area of land and sea. A big part of the potential lies outside the provincial boundaries, far away from demand centres. Still, when only the provincial potentials are considered, the total economic potential is higher than the demand. This does not necessarily mean that the available resource is accessible by the demand centres, though. The available resources of OTEC are not distributed evenly throughout the country. Some areas are blessed with remarkably good resources in abundance while the other areas are not so lucky with the resources. Hence, the stations are selected based on the proximity to the demand centres. It turns out that based on the results of the thesis, it is not possible to fully supply the electricity demand on the provincial level in Indonesia solely by OTEC electricity production of the selected stations. It is indeed possible for some areas to do that, but in other areas, there is no economic potential at all. However, it is not likely that a single resource will ever be used to cover 100% of supply. In this sense, there is a huge opportunity for OTEC to enter the energy landscape and become the provider of baseload electricity